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A 36-year-old suspected of helping a fraud ring target victims in Luxembourg with 'mum and dad' phone scams has been extradited from Italy

The public prosecutor's office has announced that a 36-year-old man has been extradited from Italy to Luxembourg police under an international arrest warrant. The man is suspected of being part of a fraud group that used Luxembourg numbers to spread "shock messages", in particular what is known as 'mum and dad phone scams'. According to the investigation, the man is alleged to have passed on a number of Luxembourg phone numbers to others, who then used them to contact potential victims in the Grand Duchy. More than 15 reports and complaints have been filed with police across the country in relation to that. The 36-year-old was taken to the Uerschterhaff prison and was brought before an investigating judge on 24 July.

What are 'mum and dad' phone scams?

"Hello Mum, my phone is broken. This is my new number..." – that is how scammers tend to open their approach in what is now known as the 'mum and dad' phone scam. In this kind of trick, the perpetrators manipulate their victims by posing as someone close to them, often a child. After an initial message, in which they claim the child has lost their phone, the scammers quickly try to build a rapport and then invent an emergency. They may claim they can no longer access their account, for instance, or that they are running into some kind of problem with the authorities that requires them to transfer money urgently.

The aim is to get the victim to send money and hand over information.

Police and the public prosecutor's office advise members of the public to be extremely cautious with messages received from unknown numbers. People should check the identity of the person by contacting them on the old number, and be wary of any request to transfer money in a hurry. Money should never be transferred on the basis of an SMS or a WhatsApp message alone, and any suspicious messages should be reported to police, authorities warn.

Also today

• Luxembourg's doctors' association president Chris Roller has accused health officials and politicians of resisting reform.
• Swimming, fishing, and allowing pets to drink are now banned at Burfelt and Rommwiss beaches on the Upper Sûre Lake.
• Marc Lauer, who will succeed Michel Reckinger as the head of the UEL in October, has identified four key challenges for Luxembourg's economy.
• Rights groups are suing Donald Trump over his sanctions targeting the International Criminal Court.
• Andras Baka, a former supreme court chief and critic of Viktor Orban who was fired during the ex-premier's time in power, has become Hungary's new head of state.
• The latest Ebola outbreak has killed more than 2,000 people in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

On air

Funky glasses to help you look at the sun eclipse tomorrow were there to win in the studio today and Ethan & John were having a heated debate on whether music of the 70', 80's and 90's was better than today's fare!

Figure of the day

The death toll from the magnitude 7.4 earthquake that struck western Colombia yesterday has reached 181, with more than 600 injured.

• Colombian volunteers cleared rubble by hand through the night in the hunt for survivors from an earthquake that killed at least 181 people and levelled more than a hundred homes and office buildings.
• The quake struck several cities across Colombia's coffee region and Pacific belt at 7:34 am (1234 GMT) Monday, toppling structures, swaying towers, and throwing roof tiles to the ground.

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