WILLEMSTAD.- Minister-President Eugene Rhuggenaath is the victim of an identity theft. An investigations carried out by EXTRA revealed that for some time someone has been approaching people from Curacao through Facebook with the name and photo of Rhuggenaath. They approach people to explain that they can participate in a program that Curaçao has in the European Union. And in this framework they can get a loan of 50,000, 60,000 or 70,000 guilders to start a business. The imposter makes use of an “account” with the name and photo of Rhuggenaath. “Rhuggenaath” has contact via Facebook with people. Supposedly “Rhuggenaath” tells people to make contact with Ms. Liliane Coutier, who apparently works in the European Union in France. If people want to obtain a deposit they must pay an amount of more than 400.00 florins as “insurance” and send it on the bank account in France of Mrs. Liliane Coutier. They should also send a copy of their ID or passport, their bank account number and some other personal information. From sources, EXTRA verified that different people from Curaçao sent money on the bank account in France, without getting any supposed deposit on their account.
This shows that our people in Curaçao are very unsuspecting and not as cautious as they should be, but they did react very quickly to an apparent offer that sounded pretty good, without doing any previous research.
Minister-President Eugene Rhuggenaath is aware of the situation. He explained to Extra that he made contact with Facebook to stop this modus operandi, in which unscrupulous people are making use of his name and photography on Facebook to commit misdeeds.
Rhuggenaath: “I have to report that I am a victim of Identity Theft, which demonstrates a cybercrime, which is a subject not far from us, which is something that affects all the people of Curaçao.” Rhuggenaath deeply regrets that there are people who believed that he approached them for something like that. “They gave money trusting the process and were harmed.” Rhuggenaath contacted Facebook about this issue and according to the Minister-President legal actions will be taken against those who committed this crime.
