Bogus rhino horns used to fool thieves

The trade in stolen rhino horns has heated up thanks to certain criminal members of Rathkeale Irish traveller families. RTE are reporting today that museum staff in the UK switched genuine rhino horns for fake ones which were stolen by thieves. The Sunday World broke the original story about the gang last June, prompting Europol's statement - read it here.

Boiler room fraud reveals a 46,000 list of 'suckers' was passed among scam artists

This week a father and two sons were jailed for running boiler room scam which took st£30 million off investors. The scam involves using high pressure sales techniques to persuade people to buy what are really worth less shares. Tomas Gilmot and his sons Kevin and Christopher from England were jailed for nine-years and five years respectively. They managed to squeeze cash out of 1,700 in the well-organised family-run scam. During the trial it emerged about the fraudsters had access to a list of 46,000 potential targets which had been passed among other scam artists. (Read more about the trial here). Such information is often culled from shareholder lists so that the scam artists know they are dealing with individuals who have already bought shares or other financial products. The bogus brokers use company names that have a vague blue chip sound to them and set up websites that give the appearance of being genuine firms. Click here to read a list of firms unauthorised to operate in Ireland.