GARDAΝ warn
businesses of the continuing existence of Invoice
Redirect Fraud and to treat any request to change
bank account details with extreme caution.
On 11th August 2020, the Bank of Ireland reported to
the Garda National Economic Crime Bureau (GNECB)
that a business customer of theirs had been the
victim of an invoice redirect scam and had lost just
over 2.1m.
The Dublin based business was making a payment to a
UK company when they received an email purporting to
be from this UK business asking them to send the
payment to a new bank account number. The Irish
business contacted the number supplied in the email
and the person who answered the phone confirmed that
all was in order. The money was then sent to the new
bank account which later transpired to be in Hong Kong.
The phone number contained in the email was fraud
and the Irish business was actually talking to the
scammer.
On receipt of the complaint from Bank of Ireland,
GNECB immediately initiated enquiries with the bank in Hong
Kong before seeking the assistance of the
authorities there. Following investigations
conducted by the police in Hong Kong on behalf of GNECB, the stolen money was secured and
its return is now being arranged.
GNECB would like to advise businesses to be wary of
such crimes and gives the following advice:
Ensure that great care and attention is given each
time they are asked to change bank account details.
A phone call should be made to a representative of
the company confirming that the bank account is
changed and care needs to be taken to ensure that
they are talking to a representation of the business
and not the fraudster.
Under no circumstances should contact details
contained in the email or attachments be relied upon
to verify the request whether these consist of a
physical address, an email address or a phone
number.
When working from home be mindful when carrying
out roles you would not usually do.
It is also imperative that where staff are using
private computers / laptop for work purposes from
their homes that the antivirus software is kept up
to date.
Detective Superintendent Michael Cryan explains: "In
many instances the business does not know it is a
victim of this crime until sometime later when the
legitimate supplier sends a reminder invoice for
payment.
It is important to note that victims of Invoice
Redirect Fraud range from very small businesses to
large corporations and the consequences of falling
for a scam of this nature can be catastrophic and
can result in the closure of businesses. All
employees should receive training in relation to
avoiding this type of scam. |
