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A police officer in Erfurt (photo from January 2019)
Photo: Martin Schutt/ dpa
With a brazen scam, telephone fraudsters stole more than two million euros from an Erfurt company.
Since mid-December, the perpetrators have been posing as the alleged managing director to an employee of the company and getting the employee to make several transfers to foreign accounts, according to the police in the Thuringian state capital.
The scam in which criminals pretend to be the boss of a company is called CEO fraud.
The perpetrators first collect any kind of information about a company, for example through economic reports, the commercial register or the website.
They also tap into social networks in which employees reveal their function and activity or personal details.
They then contact the employees they have identified, preferably from bookkeeping and accounting, and, as supposedly senior employees, instruct transfers.
According to the police, employees are asked to transfer larger sums to foreign accounts under a pretext - such as reference to an alleged company takeover or changed bank details.
The police advise companies to sensitize the workforce to the scam.
"Clear absence regulations and internal control measures" could also help.
mic/AFP
