Warning: Companies Are The Victims Of Forged International Bank Transfer Orders, A Growing Threat

Massive scams with a global scope referred to as "the forged international bank transfer order scams" have been targeting for approximately the last two years, the subsidiaries of large French companies located within the European Union or the foreign subsidiaries of companies based in France. From a French perspective, this phenomenon represents, over such period, more than 400 attempted or committed offences, for which the damages are estimated to exceed 200 million Euros. According to the Serious Financial Crime Office of the French Judicial Police (Office Central pour la Répression de la Grande Délinquance Financière de la Direction Centrale de la Police Judiciaire) (the "OCRGDF"), which has identified with great precision the modus operandi of these crooks, the authors of these offences all operate by telephone. The tracing of the fraudulent transfers has in particular enabled to determine that the funds identified to China for final destination and more particularly banks in the Zhejiang province. To organize their "forged international bank transfer order scams," the criminal organizations have broken down their actions into several steps:

The Preparatory Acts For The Scams

Firstly, the criminal organization proceeds with the "social engineering" of the targeted companies. To this effect, the criminal organization purchases via the Internet, from organizations such as "Infogreffe," the relevant information on the company, i.e. trade and companies registry extract ("K-bis extract"), indebtedness situation, by-laws, articles of association, files of the last instruments, minutes of the general meetings, annual accounts, background of the amendments, etc. The complete company files, with the names of all senior managers, their duties, telephone numbers, signatures... It only costs approximately sixty Euros to obtain such documents! A simple search on the Internet enables these groups to establish the "social engineering" file: company codes, logos, workforce, and even the "message from the Director" ... and provides them with an overall vision of the company, its language and trademarks. The criminal organization then obtains the email addresses, fax and telephone numbers to communicate with the future victim without the latter being able to find out where the crooks are located. All necessary elements for a targeted attack on a company are then in the hands of the criminal organization. It is furthermore indisputable that proceeding...

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