Project Sunbird, a joint operation between the Western Australian police and Consumer Protection departments, had been identifying 53 new romance scam victims a month by analyzing financial data. They were sending money to con artists in Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Ghana, togo and Benin.
According to PerthNow.com.au, 75% of the victims stopped sending money after receiving a warning letter from Consumer Protection. Of those that persisted, 40% stopped after receiving a second letter.
But the new Western Australia police commissioner, Chris Dawson, killed the project because of “resource priorities.”
WA Police handball romance scam investigations, on PerthNow.com.au.
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“Resource priorities,” phooey! What that means is there’s more money for the cops in writing so-called “speeding” tickets than in preventing citizens from losing their life savings to some Nigerian scammer.
Could be, or it could be legit if resources are needed to combat physically violent crimes like murder, which most would agree take priority. It would be good if the program could continue – it sounds like it was a well thought out program and that the results were empirically shown to have been successful. It may serve as a model for similar programs in other places.