Gardai warn all businesses to guard against new scam

Gardai are warning owners of SMAs to protect their businesses from a form of online crime targeting companies of all size.

Invoice Redirect Fraud is a crime targeting businesses working with suppliers that regularly perform online financial transactions.

In crimes of this nature, criminals send emails to businesses purporting to be one of their legitimate suppliers. These emails contain an instruction to change the bank account details that the business has for a legitimate supplier, to bank account details that ultimately benefit the criminals.

These requests can also come by way of letter or phone call so caution should attach to any request of this nature.

It comes as a 33 year-old man was arrested last week in Mulhuddart, Dublin 15 by members from the Money Laundering Investigation Unit at the Garda National Economic Crime Bureau in relation to the laundering of funds in excess of €1.1 Million.

The alleged laundered funds were the proceeds of an International Invoice Re-Direction Fraud perpetrated against a Danish company. It is alleged that the offence occurred in May of 2016.

The criminal intention is that when the legitimate supplier next sends an invoice to the company seeking payment for services rendered or goods supplied, the victim business acts on the new banking instructions and sends the payment to the criminal’s bank account where the funds are quickly transferred or withdrawn.

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.

All employees should receive training in relation to avoiding this type of scam.