Local company set to recoup funds after fraudsters swindle €1.5m

A local company was defrauded out of €1.5m in an email scam, which has been detected and frozen by an overseas authority investigating the matter, the Royal Gibraltar Police has confirmed.

A spokesman from the RGP said the local company fell victim to an email scam from someone pretending to be their service provider.

The fraudster asked for invoices to be paid to a new IBAN account and, over the course of two months, invoices totalling around €1.5 million were paid to the scammers.

The matter was reported on Tuesday and, despite losing €1.5m, the spokesman said the company is likely to see the money returned as it was frozen by an overseas authority investigating the matter.

This follows several reports to the RGP in recent days, with locals falling victim to various telephone scams.

On Monday, a local man lost over £14,000 after he received a call from a UK number stating that his credit card was at risk.

“The caller told the victim to cancel a recent purchase he made and informed him that his credit card was being used in Jersey,” the RGP said.

“Two payments of £12,055 and £2,197 were then taken from his card. The victim reported to police that he had shared his credit card details over the phone with the fraudster.”

Over the weekend, a staff member at a local restaurant reported that he received a phone call from someone who alleged that the manager of the establishment where he worked owed £800 for next year’s ‘licence fee’.

Several staff members then sent a total of £800 via Revolut to the caller’s bank account.

“The call turned out to be fraudulent,” the RGP said.

Last week, an employee at a bakery in town received a phone call from someone claiming to be from DHL, requesting an urgent payment of €2,000 stating that, if the payment was not made, they would shut down the bakery.

The employee then sent the funds via Revolut.

This slew comes after one of the largest scams to target Gibraltar, in terms of victims, took place earlier this year.

Over the space of a few days last July, over £3.2m was swiped by fraudsters in a telephone scam targeting local businesses.

Several businesses had suffered major financial losses, with the largest sole loss being in excess of £1m.

The RGP is reminding the public to remain vigilant and not to hand over any personal information via phone or email.

“This is a good opportunity to remind local businesses and members of the public to be on their guard against email and telephone scammers,” the spokesman told the Chronicle.

“We’ve had a number of reports of both people and businesses being scammed in the last few days.”

“Fraudsters are always developing new ways to trick people into parting with their money and they can be very persuasive.”

“The best advice we can give is to be cautious, ask questions, never disclose your banking details to unsolicited callers and never be rushed into making a quick decision under pressure when money is concerned.”

“In this latest scam, it appears that the victim is likely to have their money returned – but some have not been so lucky recently.”

“We’d like to encourage the community to continue sharing fraud warnings and advice as widely as possible, especially with senior family members and others who might be at particular risk.”

“Hopefully by sharing news like this, we can stop more people or businesses from becoming fraud victims.”

Enquiries are ongoing into the recent scams targeting locals.

The spokesman added that anyone who believes may have already fallen victim to this type of crime should contact their bank immediately and then report the matter to police: www.police.gi/report-online