Belgians lost at least €38 million to online investment scams last year

Belgians lost at least €38.3 million to online investment fraud last year, according to the financial regulator FSMA. Scams through WhatsApp groups are becoming more common.

Fraudsters often contact people without warning, offering deals that promise quick and easy profits. They approach victims by phone, email, social media and increasingly via WhatsApp.

In many cases, scammers pretended to be well-known economists or company bosses in WhatsApp groups, giving false “investment advice”. In the final six months of the year alone, losses from this type of fraud reached more than €9.5 million. On average, each victim lost €73,000. Most were men over the age of 50.

Crypto scams and fake online trading platforms still make up almost half of all reports received by the regulator.

The number of complaints about suspicious activity also rose. The FSMA received 2,911 reports last year, 11 per cent more than in 2024. It issued warnings about 240 fraudulent organisations and 316 websites, many of which were asked to be blocked by the courts.

The FSMA has joined the Belgian Anti-Phishing Shield, run by the Centre for Cybersecurity. This system redirects users away from scam websites to a warning page. Since mid-May, the regulator has added 245 fraudulent web domains, preventing nearly 23,000 people from reaching criminal sites.

^{© AFP PHOTO / WANG ZHAO}