Ministry warns against phone calls from ‘central government’: beware of scams

The Ministry of Justice and Security reports fraud by telephone. There are currently many people being called who are being alerted about a possible security vulnerability.

Phone calls from ‘central government’

A large group of people have been called in recent days, allegedly on behalf of the Ministry of Justice and Security. Although it is usually always a Dutch telephone number, an English-language band plays after recording. In this it is said that they are talking with the ‘Ministry of Justice’, the ‘Dutch Supreme Court’ or ‘the National Police’. The ‘reason’ of calling differs. Sometimes it is because your citizen service number is allegedly being misused, there is an arrest warrant against you, or it is discovered that you are part of criminal activities such as drug trafficking or money laundering.

Once further in the conversation you can press the number 1, where you would supposedly be connected to an agent. On the basis of certain data, it would like to establish your identity, and may be asked to transfer money to an account number or even a crypto wallet. In fact, these are scammers looking for victims. They want to find out your citizen service number (BSN) and with sufficient information, the (financial) damage can be considerable.

When you receive a call from such a number, it is advised to hang up immediately. Often the (06-) numbers used to call are, spoofed† This means that it looks like the number is being called, but in fact these are often private numbers, which the owner of that number usually has nothing to do with.