270,000 euros, the sum was pretty good for the crooks who targeted Avona, a women's ready-to-wear company based in the Rhône.
At the beginning of April, the company of 80 employees was the victim of a "
scam to the president
", a scam which consists in usurping the identity of a company manager.
If the money could be recovered, it was not enough for the boss of Avona, who turned into an investigator to track down the criminals.
Read also: Personal training account scams: "A lot of people don't know they've been hacked!"
It all started on April 8, when the Avona accountant received an email that seemed to come from the business manager, “
Did Me Bertrand contact you?
". The address of the sender is in fact subtly different from that of Sébastien Pagani.
A few minutes later, a man calls the accountant, he claims to be Me Bertrand and a member of a renowned consulting firm.
He asks her to carry out an "
urgent
"
banking transaction
with a view to the purchase of a Hungarian company.
“
He put her at ease: he knew perfectly well how the company works.
He told him that I had appointed him,
”says the real head of this company.
Without suspecting it, the accountant then discusses it by email with the person she takes for her boss, who obviously validates the transaction and asks her not to tell anyone else.
A planned, urgent and confidential transaction
A classic pattern in this type of scam where “
the transaction is always planned, urgent, and confidential.
Beforehand, the crooks carry out a very thorough investigation of the company so that everything appears credible,
”explains Sébastien Pagani, who has made good inquiries.
The next day, when the manager is informed by his banker of these two transfers of 135,000 euros to Hungary, he first believes in a hacking.
But when his accountant maintains that it was he who ordered them, he understands that he was the victim of a "
scam at the president
".
This stratagem peaked in the years 2013-2014 in France, before experiencing a resurgence since the health crisis.
Funds are recovered
"
Thanks to the reactivity of his bank
", the business manager still manages to block and recover his funds. But the latter does not stop there, anticipating an investigation, he asks his accountant to continue to exchange with the crooks to gather as much information as possible. Believing that he can leave the case to the authorities, Sébastien Pagani "
is completely overwhelmed
" when the police say they cannot catch the crooks in the act without the green light from a magistrate. “
We act based on what we can legally do. The infiltrations are very supervised
”, explains Judicaële Ruby, head of the division for the fight against financial crime in Lyon.
Sébastien Pagani, a computer engineer by training, then took it into his head to hunt down the crooks himself.
“
I don't want to let go of them.
I do not support cheaters, and when I see that the referee is not doing his job, I use private means to do it,
”this modern-day vigilante told AFP.
Cookies and viruses
A few lines of code later, the boss of Avona sends viruses and cookies by email to locate the crooks.
"
These are outdated methods but it's still better than nothing since I managed to identify the company used by the crooks
" in Hungary.
This information was sent to the Villefranche-sur-Saône police station, where his complaint was registered, pending the change of scenery of the case to a court better armed against this type of crime.
Mr Pagani also lodged another complaint in Hungary.
The judicial police give priority to prevention
For its part, the judicial police ensure that these cases require "
complicated
"
international cooperation
, made even more delicate by the "
meticulous anonymization techniques
" used by the crooks. "
What we do is mainly prevention, to tell the accountant to be very careful because the fault is human before being technical
", underlines Judicaële Ruby. In the meantime, Sébastien Pagani has installed a new computer system to protect himself from this type of scam. But these vicissitudes have “
Beyond the financial damage, there is moral damage. This affair affected a large part of the workforce. My accountant is still in shock,
”he notes.
