Filenews 15 February 2021 - by Dora Christodoulou
A British permanent resident of Paphos, who is in charge of an English transport company also operating in Cyprus, complained to the Paphos Police that a sum of 21,000 euros sent since December to a specific company in England ended up in an unknown account and not in the one for the beneficial owner.
The company manager testified that she was only recently informed by the employees of the company to which the transfer was allegedly sent that they did not receive the money they needed. The sending company raised the alarm and from the checks carried out in cooperation with banking institutions and the Police, it emerged that the 21 thousand euros ended up in an account of unknown persons, since, as revealed by further examinations, and in this case as is often the case in recent times, someone intervened in her account and sent her a new account to deposit the money, pretending to be from the beneficiary company.
Speaking about the new fraud, the head of the Paphos Fraud Unit, Michalis Ioannou, pointed out that the Paphos Police acted immediately and is cooperating with Interpol and the bank, with a view to freeze the money if possible and return it to the complainant.
"From the examinations so far," he stressed, "it appears that the money has been received by the perpetrators and efforts are being made to locate their details with a view to issuing arrest warrants."
Mr Ioannou reiterated the authorities' calls for those who deal with online payments to be particularly careful and suspicious, since in recent times this identical method of fraud has taken on almost daily dimensions.
