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New Zealand
The Financial Markets Authority in New Zealand has warned the public to be wary of scammers impersonating the FMA as part of a money transfer scheme.

On 5 August, the FMA said in a statement that it was contacted by a woman who had tried to transfer a significant amount of money from China to New Zealand. She said that she and her family had been “stranded in New Zealand” due to COVID-19 and needed the money for living expenses. She also said that she had seen an advertisement on a community news outlet offering money transfer services, and arranged the transfer via WeChat. The money was sent to a bank in Inner Mongolia.

However, when the money didn’t arrive, the woman was told it had been “frozen” by the FMA due to money laundering suspicions. She was later phoned by a man posing as an FMA official, falsely saying that she would have to pay more to release the original sum – which, unfortunately, she did, the regulator said. 

“We are trying to ascertain if the scammer is in New Zealand, as they appear to have had some local knowledge, and also if anyone else has been defrauded by them,” Liam Mason, FMA director of regulation, said.