Belgium’s Financial Services and Markets Authority (FSMA) has issued a warning against several entities that operate unauthorized and that may be boiler-room frauds. The entities are targeting and contacting Belgium citizens in an attempt to get them to invest their money. They appear to be targeting company managers and directors in particular. In boiler room schemes, fraudsters contact customers, often by phone, and offer to sell them financial products that may appear genuine, but are in fact fictitious or worthless. Investors are promised high profits and lured into depositing a certain amount after which they receive a fast profit. Such companies present themselves as being authorized and eligible businesses with a professional website and forms to fill out. However, soon after fraudsters ask for additional investments which the client looses. In order to get their money back, investors are asked, often through pressure, to make further payments if they want to access their funds.
Seems like a dumb demographic to target, especially in someplace as small as Belgium where anyone in a company manager role would be instantly suspicious of a random boiler room guy with no connections in the network.
As a somewhat related interesting aside, I read that the spelling and grammar mistakes in "Nigerian Prince" type scams are intentional because it screens out everyone with an ounce of credulity who they might waste time on only to have them eventually bail out. Another interesting aside, apparently as we age the part of your brain that questions these kind of things has actually been shown to have diminished capacity. Either way, still seems like slim pickings, maybe they moved up the coast from Nigeria to the francophone part of Africa so they're limited to targeting France and half of Belgium!