Irish Businessmen lost More than €10 Million in Invoice Redirect Fraud

Sophisticated invoice redirect fraud in Ireland has resulted in the loss of €10 Million for businessmen. The fraud consists of the scammers sending an email pretending to be the supplier and asking for the payment of an invoice. The company ends up making the payment thinking it has paid a real supplier. The money is then redirected into the overseas accounts and then laundered. 

In most cases, the business entities remain unaware of the attack until the real supplier sends the invoice and demands the payment. The invoice redirect fraud has looted the businesses of all ranges from small scale to a large corporation. 

Becoming a victim of such fraud can prove to be a harmful business. The loss can result in the closure of the business as well. The National Police of Ireland, Gardaí, has warned the companies about the fraud in the awareness week. They have told the companies that they should verify the supplier and if there has been any change to the bank details they must treat it with suspicion and not to make any payments without proper investigation.

“Contact the supplier using your own trusted contacts or a telephone number you have researched independently. Don’t trust the phone number on the email because it may just link back to the scammers.” Says a spokesperson from Gardaí, “Ensure staff take great care and attention each time they are asked to change bank account details. Check the IBAN number – what country is it in? IBANs can be checked by doing a very quick google search. Check the URL and the spelling. Verify the email address is spelt correctly and check the URL hasn’t been changed from ‘.ie’ to ‘.com’ for example. This could be a sign that a fraudster is trying to replicate the details of a company.”

A firm in Ireland has lost a sum of €600,000 to invoice redirect fraud for a purchase of a product. The firm discovered that the money was redirected through a false email request and they were transferred to Ireland, the EU, and Hong Kong in money mule accounts.

FIU- Financial Intelligence Units across the country are working with the Financial Crimes Department of Interpol to retrieve the stolen funds from this fraud. 

A company in the Netherlands sent an email invoice to this company for a business deal. However, the Netherlands company’s email was compromised and the invoice sent also proved to be fake.