Bermuda has been hit by hundreds of scams already this year, police figures show.

The revelation comes after The Royal Gazette highlighted the case of a man who was conned out of $35,000 from two HSBC accounts.

The Bermuda Police Service said that they could not comment on individual investigations, but made clear the level of the problem.

A spokesman said: “Banking fraud statistics, scams are usually entered into our database as either, ‘theft’ or ‘deception’. There is no way to subcategorise into banking scams.

“However, between January 1, 2023 and today’s date, the Bermuda Police Service have initiated 54 investigations involving fraud and deception and 236 investigations of theft.

“The majority of those investigations will relate to scams.”

The news comes after Raj Hegde, a sub-editor at The Royal Gazette, fell victim to a fake text message falsely claiming to be from One Communications.

The scam operates via a text falsely appearing to be from OneComm regarding a payment query.

It states: “One: We were unable to process your last bill payment. To avoid service suspension, update your details via onedebit.onebermuda.net.”

Mr Hegde clicked on the link and later discovered that $35,000 had gone from two of his accounts.

He said the way HSBC has handled the situation over the past six weeks has left him feeling “angry and offended”.

The bank wrongly told him three times that the money had been returned to his accounts only to then inform him that the $35,000 had “disappeared” and had been withdrawn by someone operating an account at the US bank Wells Fargo.

When Mr Hegde filed a complaint with the police, an officer told him that he had received the same scam message twice.

In March, the BPS issued a warning regarding giving out personal banking details after a man lost nearly $1,000 in a fraud centred on bedroom furniture being advertised on Instagram.

Police suggested that the victim was contacted by an impostor claiming to be from the BPS cybercrimes unit seeking financial details.

Also, last December, $10,000 were lost by people caught up in a scam soliciting payment for goods that were never delivered.

In 2021, island residents were cheated out of almost $4 million in online scams, police reported.

Suspected scams can be reported to the police by calling 211 or e-mailing 211@bps.bm.

• Have you been affected? E-mail news@royalgazette.com