Fraudsters target British expats in retirement havens

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Wednesday, 25 March 2009 09:27

British citizens living abroad are being targeted by unscrupulous financial advisers for risky investment schemes and fraud.
Pensioners have proved a prime target, with many defrauded out of their life savings, regulators and campaigners warn.

One expat group in Spain, weary of its community being consistently cheated, has posted warnings about 40 different investment scams on its website.

The same country’s financial regulator has previously investigated more than 17,000 complaints of mis-selling.

Many of the investment operations targeting expatriates in Spain falsely claim to be based and regulated in offshore jurisdictions such as Gibraltar. The Gibraltar Financial Services Commission has issued strong warnings regarding a number of organisations run by British financial advisers in Spain.

The Commission has urged consumers to tread carefully, saying they should, “exercise the greatest possible caution before proceeding.”
Its guidance to expats keen to invest money is qualified by warnings. Headings such as “Do I need to be suspicious?” and “Protect yourself” offer advice to ward off unscrupulous salesmen. The golden rule is, “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is”.

British expatriates are ideal targets for chancers and conmen, warns Offshore Alert magazine. “A typical expat is financially successful,” the magazine says. “Also, being strangers in a foreign land, expats tend to work and socialise together, forming a group of people that is easy for conmen to recognise and infiltrate.”

Many are elderly, and more vulnerable to sharp practice by fraudsters. Many of the con artists are themselves offshore or in countries with little or no financial regulation.