On Tuesday, the Maldives police cautioned about an increase in medical scams conducted through the social media platform Facebook.

In a statement on Tuesday, the Anti-Scam Center reported a notable rise in Facebook posts that utilize images of sick individuals to request donations.

However, the police cautioned that numerous these posts are fraudulent.

Law enforcement stated that these fraudsters take images of sick individuals from online sources and fabricate heartbreaking narratives about an ailing relative, typically a child, to elicit compassion and request donations. They may not answer calls placed to the phone numbers listed in the post, but will quickly respond to messages.

The police provided several safety recommendations to avoid scams. This encompasses:

- Verifying and confirming the legitimacy of these requests prior to sending money.

- Conducting an investigation to verify the legitimacy of images presented in these posts, such as utilizing Google reverse image search.

- Avoiding the dissemination of such posts unless their authenticity is verified to protect others from being deceived by scams.

- The authorities encouraged the officers to stay alert