Photo credit; Widjaya Ivan on Flickr
Small business owners in New Zealand are being warned to watch out for overseas money laundering scams.
The latest scam sees businesses contacted by a fake overseas customer asking to purchase products. The fake customer then pays  over the stated amount, and asks for the excess to be sent to an overseas bank account, thus laundering it in the process.
Police investigations have revealed the original payment was obtained fraudulently through phishing scams, the ‘customer’ is never heard from again and does not request that the goods be sent.
Detective Sergeant Simon Beal from Counties Manukau’s Financial Investigation Team says it is a worrying development.
“We’ve seen more traditional scams through employment and romance ruses, but this time the offenders are targeting Kiwi business owners who are trying to go about their everyday business,” Beal said.
“In all of these money laundering scams, the scammer is based overseas and leads the victim to believe they are interested in doing legitimate business, despite their physical location.”
“We want to make business owners aware of the techniques used by these scammers to ensure they inform police at the earliest sign of a scam.”
General red flags for scams:
- Overseas contact via phone or email
- Rapport built up to a point where the victim feels like they can share personal information
- Information gained by the scammer is used to place pressure on victim to send money
- Money to be sent usually via Western Union or other money remitter to an overseas destination
- Usually romance or social networking scams
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Red flags for business scams:
- Contact made by phone or email by an overseas or unknown buyer
- Too much money appears in the business account
- Purchaser then wants money transferred to overseas account (even though it came from an NZ account)
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