Beware of fraudsters pretending to be senior management officers of companies and sending fictitious emails to induce staff to transfer the companies’ funds to bank accounts of the fraudsters.

Previous modus operandi of email scam: clients’ bank account numbers have changed

Fraudsters knew from stolen emails about the transactions of Company A (the seller) and Company B (the buyer). Later, fraudsters, pretending to be Company A, sent fictitious emails to the staff of Company B, claiming that the payment receiving bank account number of Company A has changed, and requesting Company B to credit the amount payable to the designated account provided by fraudsters. Afterwards, when contacting Company A by phone, Company B found out that it had been deceived by fictitious emails and suffered losses both in money and business reputation.

Latest modus operandi of fraudsters: pretending to be senior management officers of companies

Victims are local companies. Pretending to be the senior management officers of victim companies, fraudsters sent out fictitious emails to the staff (such as accounting officers or managers), claiming that there is a need to transfer money to overseas business partners or make business investments, and directed the staff to transfer funds of the company to the bank accounts designated by fraudsters.

Crime Prevention Tips

Company Staff

• If you receive emails from persons who claim to be senior management officers requesting transfer of money with various reasons, you should check and seek confirmation from relevant officers to verify the identity of the sender.
• Don’t transfer the company’s funds to bank account that has not been verified.

Company Management

• Guidelines on verification of identity and transfer of funds should be formulated and disseminated to staff or business partners. The relevant mechanisms should be reviewed regularly.
• Multiple approval mechanisms should be set up to stipulate the work procedures of all levels of staff, so as to verify the identity of the recipient of funds and the genuine purpose of remittance.