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The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is urging over 55s to check investment opportunities are genuine before they part with their money. This comes as new research*, commissioned as part of the FCA’s ScamSmart campaign, reveals that only two in five (42%) think they know how to spot a fraudulent investment opportunity. Fraudsters are targeting the growing over 55 population because they are more likely to have money to invest.

Last year, victims of investment fraud lost on average £32,000** as fraudsters employed increasingly advanced psychological tactics to persuade victims to invest. One of the most common methods used by fraudsters is to pressurise potential investors to make a quick decision on a time-limited investment offer. This new research found that more than half (53%) of the over 55s surveyed believed acting quickly can be key to getting a good deal, demonstrating how many could be vulnerable to this tactic.

A third (34%) said it is best not to discuss investment decisions with others and fewer than half (48%) said they would be likely to seek impartial advice before making an investment. These attitudes are seized on by fraudsters, who often urge their target to keep the offer a secret, in order to prevent others from dissuading them from investing.

45% of over 55s surveyed agreed that investment opportunities are more attractive if you know of others who have made similar investments. Fraudsters may exploit this by saying that others want in on the deal or have already benefitted.

Interestingly, those surveyed were more aware of certain signs of investment fraud, but less aware of others. For example, 92% agreed being contacted out of the blue could be a warning sign, but 19% were unaware that being promised returns above the market rate could also be a tactic.  The common tactics used by fraudsters include:

• Offering lucrative returns above the market rate and downplaying the risks of the investment
• Using flattery to make potential victims feel good, such as praising them for being a knowledgeable investor
• Saying that the deal is only available to the target and asking them to keep it a secret
• Saying that other clients have invested or want in on the deal (known as ‘social proof’)
• Putting them under pressure to invest in a time-limited offer

The FCA is urging consumers to be sceptical and cautious before they invest their money. If someone invests their money with an unauthorised firm then they will have no protection from the Financial Ombudsman Service or Financial Services Compensation Scheme if things go wrong.

To avoid being a victim of investment fraud, the FCA advises consumers to, at the very least:

• Reject unsolicited contact about investments
• Before investing, check the Financial Services Register to see if the firm or individual you are dealing with is authorised and check the FCA Warning List of firms to avoid
• Get impartial advice before investing

The number of pet cruelty offenses registered by the GNR last year has increased compared to 2015, totalling 767, representing a growth of more than a hundred cases.

In a statement, the GNR, through the Service of Protection of Nature and the Environment (SEPNA), predicts that, in 2016, and following inspection actions, 767 crimes were registered, 112 more than in the same period of 2015, which corresponds to an average of two per day.

According to the GNR data, 3694 complaints of ill-treatment were registered last year, 116 fewer than in the same period of 2015 (which corresponds to an average of 10 per day).

The highest number of complaints were recorded in the month of March (374), February (366), January (361) and May (351).

According to SEPNA data, the districts with the highest number of complaints last year were Lisbon (591), Setúbal (556), Porto (471), Aveiro (291) and Faro (240).

186 complaints were registered in Madeira and in the Azores 195, according to the data.

Surveillance of pet mistreatment is done through SEPNA, and denunciations can be sent to the SOS Environment and Territory line (808200520) or through the GNR web page .

The law criminalizing maltreatment of animals entered into force on October 1, 2014.

“Who, without legitimate cause, inflicts pain, suffering or any other physical ill-treatment on a companion animal shall be punished with imprisonment for up to one year or with a fine of up to 120 days,” according to the law. Feathers may be aggravated if the animal dies or becomes incapacitated.

Whoever leaves an animal is punished with a prison sentence of up to six months or a fine of up to 60 days. Source Diario de Noticais

Parish councils will be able to create local civil protection units to raise awareness and inform the local population and support the management of occurrences, such as fires, in the scope of the transfer of competences to the local authorities.

According to the agency Lusa, the office of the Secretary of State for Internal Administration, Jorge Gomes, local civil protection units can be set up at the initiative of the parish council and after a favorable opinion from the municipal civil protection commission.

Chaired by the president of the board, these local units participate “in the assessment of vulnerabilities, in public awareness and information and in support of incident management, as defined in the emergency plans.”

Decentralization of competences in the area of ​​civil protection also covers municipal emergency plans, which are no longer approved by the National Civil Protection Commission and are approved by the municipal assembly after a binding opinion from the National Civil Protection Authority (ANPC).

According to the office of Jorge Gomes, municipalities will assume responsibility for fire safety in buildings, in particular as regards the approval of projects and conducting inspections, if the city councils have quality technicians certified by the ANPC.

Fire safety in schools and nursing homes is also the responsibility of municipalities.

The secretary of state’s office has also advanced that municipal operational coordination centers will be set up, just as there are district and national centers.

The municipalities, firemen, GNR and PSP are part of the operational coordination center of each municipality. The captain’s commander, the hospital official and the president of forestry producers’ organizations may also participate, if they exist and are justified.

Directed by the municipal operations and relief coordinator, the municipal-level operational coordination center organizes and creates the preventive and operational response measures when there are yellow or higher special alert states.

Municipal civil protection services are now equipped with risk and vulnerability prevention and risk assessment, planning and support for operations, logistics and communications, and public awareness and information.

Municipalities with more than one fire brigade will also be able to create operating rooms and emergency management, which function as a “communications and dispatch room of fire brigade facilities”, as well as coordination center meeting space Operational.

Another of the competences to be transferred to the municipal councils and parish councils is the monitoring of the forests through the constitution of teams.

According to the office of Jorge Gomes, many municipalities already constitute teams of volunteers and municipal officials and parishes who, in the critical period of forest fires, use all-terrain vehicles with kits to carry out surveillance, detection and, if necessary, First intervention.

 

The installation and maintenance of the video surveillance systems that the Government wants to install in the forest areas will be the responsibility of municipalities and inter-municipal communities (CIM), although the users are ANPC and GNR.

According to the Government, there are ten video surveillance projects, led by the inter-municipal communities, which will be financed with community funds.

During the commemorations of the Civil Protection Day, which today was marked, the Minister of Internal Affairs, Constança Urbano de Sousa, said that the legislative proposals that allow the transfer of competences to the municipal councils and parish councils in the Protection.

It was reported that on 4^th March that agents of the Spanish National Police and the Civil Guard have carried out Operation “MISSOURI” in which a criminal organization has been dismantled conducting thefts at ATMs Banks by means of the gas explosion. The members of this group used disguises to avoid being identified and explosive and flammable material to access the money that was inside the ATMs. Six people, mostly South American, have been arrested in the operation.

Police found in three houses and a rented storage room, numerous false documents (passports, driving licenses and identity cards from different countries) acetylene cylinders, cable clamps, hoses, car batteries and metal rods, costumes and masks used in thefts, specialized tools, computers, telephones and cash. They used acetylene gas to blow up and steal ATMs.

The operation began after contacts between the two police forces which verified the existence of a criminal group that could be responsible for several robberies with force committed in ATMs of different Andalusian localities, in which they used explosives to access the money

Continuing with the investigations, agents of the Scientific Police identified a DNA profile, which placed the main suspect of a robbery committed at a bank in Jerez de la Frontera (Cadiz). During the incident four individuals (two of them armed with shotguns and another with a large knife), entered the bank and tied up an employee and stole cash from the safes.

The individuals also committed eight robberies with force at ATMs in different bank branches located in several localities of some Andalusian provinces.

The information was revealed after the arrest of three robbers in Portugal. The leader of the organization under investigation recomposed the group, bringing from Chile two people who are specialists in the theft of ATMs by means of the explosion with flammable gases.

Likewise, the agents found that the organization used rental vehicles obtained with falsified documents which were sometimes replaced by stolen license plates to commit various ATM robberies

Each of these robberies was carried out using explosive and flammable material, namely acetylene gas which were injected by rubber tubes into the tellers, and using rods connected to a car battery, as a detonator of the compartment. Once the ATM exploded, the criminals used axes, shears, chisels or screwdrivers to access even the money.

It is believed that the group were planning similar crimes in Bonares, Huelva, (about 60 kms from Portugal) where they had an infrastructure in place.

The National Civil Protection Authority will train 1,320 Army personnel to integrate the Special Firefighting Devices (DECIF) for surveillance functions, the Army said Thursday.

“This is a Specialization Course in Active Post-Post Surveillance to be held until next May 11, at the Castelo Branco Logistic Support Base. The course, certified by the General Directorate of Employment and Labor Relations and recognized by the National School of Firefighters, will provide the military with more skills to integrate the theatres of operations to combat forest fires in active surveillance after resolution, “said an army statement released today.

The possibility of the military being integrated into the firefighting device this year was advanced by the Minister of Internal Administration, Constança Urbano de Sousa, in an interview with the newspaper Expresso in February.

The Army’s statement also states that the collaboration of the military with Civil Protection already occurs, “when requested, in the fight against forest fires in actions of surveillance, aftermath and post-civilian surveillance, in the provision of infrastructures and equipment and in the Provision of logistical support in order to contribute to the safety of people and goods and safeguarding the natural heritage in national territory. ”

According to data presented in November by the National Civil Protection Authority (ANPC) and the Institute for Nature Conservation and Forests (ICNF), the area burned in 2016 almost tripled in relation to 2015, with a total of 152,251 hectares consumed by the fires.

The number of fires declined by 16% in 2016 compared to the previous year, with 13,137 incidents.

The area burned in 2016 is the highest in the last decade, but lower than in 2003 and 2005.

Fire events, however, have registered a downward trend.

Between 23 and 28 February, the Regional Police of the Public Security Police of Madeira registered 25 arrests most of them were driving under the influence of alcohol (19). One person was detained for drug trafficking, two for driving without a license; and two under an arrest warrant.

The figures are the result of Operation Always Present Police – Carnival in Security 2017 that the CR PSP Madeira developed in its area of ​​responsibility.

In the reference period, 1484 doses of hashish were seized.

In the scope of the inspection to establishments the PSP detected 10 infractions to the existing legislation.

On the road side, PSP checked 1165 vehicles, having detected 118 infractions, of which 39 were for illegal parking; 9 for mobile phone use while driving; 14 for lack of inspection and 12 for not wearing a seat belt. Some 20 vehicles were still detected for speeding.

In terms of road fatalities, the PSP registered a total of 49 accidents, resulting in 12 minor injuries and two serious injuries.

Spanish police announced on Saturday 4th March 2017 that they had dismantled a Colombian cocaine trafficking network in an operation that arrested 24 people and seized 2.4 tons of drugs.

The suspected drug traffickers, belonging to two groups linked to the “Cucuta cartel”, “were trying to settle in Spain,” the head of the Spanish police narcotics squad, Ricardo Toro, told a news conference in the city of A Coruña.

The seizure “is one of the most important” carried out in recent years in Spain on cocaine trafficking, he said.

“The majority” of those arrested are of Colombian nationality and the rest are Spanish, he said, adding that many are “very important figures in international cocaine trafficking.”

His job was to get the drug and distribute it in Spain and Europe through double-bottomed cars, his goal being to “establish a new route to Spain” for cocaine, according to a police statement.

Spain is the main drug entry point in Europe due to its proximity to North Africa, where cannabis is produced, and to its ties to South America, where cocaine comes from.

An ATM was broken into and money stolen, on 5th March in the Caldas da Rainha, informed source of the District Command of the PSP of Leiria.

The assault occurred around 5.30 am in a “cash machine located inside the dependence of the Agricultural Credit Bank” of Caldas da Rainha, said a PSP source from Leiria.

According to the same source, the Judiciary Police went to the site to investigate the situation. At present the number of people were involved in the robbery and whether the explosion was made using “gas or explosives,” is not known.

 

The Food and Economic Security Authority seized two elephant ivory tusks, for sale on the internet without a certificate, and identified four people who were going to make the transaction, a practice penalized with a fine between 10,000 and 100,000 euros.

The action was carried out by the National Information and Criminal Investigation Unit and allowed to identify “four individuals who wanted to transact the objects without the required mandatory CITES certificate”, and instituted backtracking proceedings, the Food and Economic Security Authority (ASAE) reported today.

This practice constitutes a very serious environmental counter-order, with a fine between 10 thousand and 100 thousand euros.

The seizure took place in the context of combating trafficking in protected species through CITES a convention on international trade in endangered wild species and led to the confiscation of two tusks or tusks of elephant ivory, one with 36.5 centimeters and about 1.5 kilograms and another one with 91 centimeters, explains the ASAE.

The search to find the 13-year-old teenager missing since Friday, from Ponte de Lima, was extended to the district of Aveiro, and the Judiciary Police of Braga was alerted, according to a GNR source.

According to a source from the Territorial Command of the GNR of Viana do Castelo, the district of Aveiro was identified through the request of cellular location made by that police force.

“Through the mobile phone of the minor, the request for cellular location has identified the district of Aveiro. We have informed the Territorial Command of Aveiro to try and more accurately pin point the area,” the source said.

The same source revealed that “there are reports”, still unconfirmed, that the child will have caught a bus bound for Braga.

The 13-year-old girl, who lives in the parish of Beiral do Lima, “took a school bus on Friday morning to go to class but did not show up at school.”

The authorities’ warning was given at around 8:00 pm by the parents of the minor, “who” cannot explain what happened. ”

The Territorial Command of the GNR of Viana do Castelo said that the military involved in the operation “continue to gather information from relatives and friends of the child”, who “has apparently taken this decision of her own free will.”

The data of the adolescent “are already included in the database of people given as missing”.