A Perth law firm has narrowly escaped a $400,000 fraud attempt by an international scammer.
The unnamed firm was approached by an organisation masquerading as a Beijing export company. The brief: to recover a $900,000 debt from an Australian company. It was one of those 419-esque offers everyone is told to reject , although to be fair it was a little more believable than the usual tales of dead husbands, lottery wins or offers of marriage...
The firm pressed ahead, and within two weeks the company (later traced to an address in Canada) informed it that the debtor had agreed to settle for $400,000. A cheque for that amount turned up in due course, but by this stage the firm had become suspicious. It dropped a polite email to local police, who investigated and confirmed that the cheque was indeed bogus.
According to Detective Sergeant Bernie Iriks of the Major Fraud Squad, the law firm would have been asked to pay the money to the sham company out of its own funds. Only to find itself out of pocket when the cheque bounced as high as a rubber ball.
The Major Fraud Squad are now working closely with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Anti Fraud taskforce to chase down their quarry.
Tip Off ROF
The unnamed firm was approached by an organisation masquerading as a Beijing export company. The brief: to recover a $900,000 debt from an Australian company. It was one of those 419-esque offers everyone is told to reject , although to be fair it was a little more believable than the usual tales of dead husbands, lottery wins or offers of marriage...
The firm pressed ahead, and within two weeks the company (later traced to an address in Canada) informed it that the debtor had agreed to settle for $400,000. A cheque for that amount turned up in due course, but by this stage the firm had become suspicious. It dropped a polite email to local police, who investigated and confirmed that the cheque was indeed bogus.
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How it might have looked |
According to Detective Sergeant Bernie Iriks of the Major Fraud Squad, the law firm would have been asked to pay the money to the sham company out of its own funds. Only to find itself out of pocket when the cheque bounced as high as a rubber ball.
The Major Fraud Squad are now working closely with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Anti Fraud taskforce to chase down their quarry.