Barely a week after the sad and tragic demise of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 comes another shocking news.
It was reported that scammers were taking advantage of the massive incident by setting up fake Facebook accounts using the names of the victims. These fake Facebook pages shared a link to a video which claimed to show the actual footage of the MH17 crash. Instead, it directed users to a site with pop-up ads for shady services. These accounts have since been removed by Facebook.
Also read: [Breaking News] Malaysian Airlines MH17 Shot Down in Ukraine Airspace
“Crooks are super-fast these days at picking up on anything that’s remotely topical and working out how to monetize it from a criminal point of view… It’s a really distasteful trend.” – Alastair MacGibbon, Director of the University of Canberra’s Centre for Internet Safety
To make matters worse, there are claims that credit cards may have been stolen from the crash site.
“It really does look, I’m afraid to say, as though there has been some sort of looting here because virtually every bag we’ve seen has been opened… It looks like it’s been rummaged through, and if that’s true that’s a very distressing element to this whole disaster.” – Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) journalist Phil Williams, who was at the crash site.
Previously seen on his official Facebook page, Ukrainian MP Anton Gerashchenko shares that the culprits, termed as “death hunters”, were gathering cash, jewellery and credit cards of the victims of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17. The airplane was shot down over eastern Ukraine on Thursday. All 283 passengers and 15 Malaysian crew died.
The Dutch Banking Association has since released a statement that the next of kin would be compensated for the damages caused by the credit card theft.
“It is an absolutely shambolic situation… It looks more like a garden clean-up than a forensic investigation.”
Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott
According to ABC, if the downing of MH17 is categorised as a terrorist attack, the families of the Australian victims would be entitled to receive $75,000 Australian dollars each. This payment was previously given to the families of the Australian victims of the Bali bombings in 2002 and the Australian victims of the World Trade Center attack in 2001.
Also read: Skype Scams – Malaysian Users Still Falling for It
