Commercial companies are losing millions of euros to scammers who are sending e-mails, posing as chief executive officers or suppliers and requesting urgent payments, often running into tens of thousands of euros.

The police are receiving reports of such business e-mail compromise scams “on a weekly basis”, according to Inspector Timothy Zammit, from the police cybercrime unit.

Scammers are targeting large companies and defrauding them of between €100,000 and €250,000 each, with the largest scam so far running into millions.

Two types of these scams have been reported to the police.

1. The CEO scam

The first is the CEO scam, in which a company official receives an urgent e-mail from a scammer pretending to be the company CEO requesting an urgent transaction.

In some cases, scammers ask for same day transactions

In such cases, scammers either recreate an e-mail address similar to that of the company CEO or actually hack into the CEO’s e-mail and sent the e-mail from the legitimate account.

2. The invoice scam

The other business scam is directed at companies expecting an invoice. In these cases, scammers send an e-mail pretending to be a supplier the company was doing business with, requesting payment to a new account. In some cases, the scammers ask for same-day transactions.

Zammit said that, in some cases, the police managed to work with the banks to revert the transaction. This was the case in the scam that ran into millions of euros.

“Fraudsters are investing a lot of time. Gone are the days when scam messages are written in broken English. They are investing the time and targeting higher amounts,” he said.

“They are maximising on the fact that we are always in a rush. We need to learn to question things. Just like looking on both sides of the road before crossing has become second nature, we need to practise caution online.

“So, the best advice is to question any change in circumstances and, if in doubt, check: pick up the phone and check with someone you know.

“Don’t reply to an e-mail since fraudsters are prepared for that,” Zammit added.

Over the past weeks, scammers have also been targeting individuals with bank and postal operators scams. The police are receiving about 20 reports a day by people falling victim to convincing e-mails or text messages.

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