We were approached by a client based in Canada who had been tricked into sending more than $400,000 US dollars to companies and individuals based in UK and Malaysia.
He was communicating via a known ‘gay dating site’, had an online relationship and developed feelings for an unknown male. This was a clever scam that took months to implement with various authentic tactics to justify that the scammer was actually who he said he was.
The client communicated with the scammer over several months. The scammer used recorded bank voice messages to convince my client that he had funds in his account. The scammer allowed my client to phone the automated ‘fake’ bank number and key in his alleged bank numbers to hear the balance of his account as a part to convince my client to send payments over to assist in a business deal. The client was tricked into sending various payment to the UK and Malaysia over several months.
Our objective was to uncover who was behind the scam and liaise with authorities as and where necessary. In addition we were asked to attempt to retrieve the client’s funds.
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