An Australian woman has fallen victim to an elaborate scam after she unwittingly transferred $813,000 to criminals, which she believed was going towards the purchase of a new home.
The woman, from South Australia, fell victim last year to what’s known as a Business Email Compromise (BEC) scam, the Australian Federal police said.
Fortunately, police managed to recover $777,000 of the woman’s money, or about 96 per cent of the funds stolen, in March, 2024.
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The cybercriminals had created a fake email address imitating a legitimate business email in order to deceive the woman. The con artists’ email address was one letter different to the real account.
The money was sent to the account run by criminals instead of a legitimate conveyancer’s account as part of the purchase of a new home.
The woman notified her bank two days after she had transferred the money.
“Under the multiagency taskforce Operation DOLOS, JPC3 worked closely with state and territory police and multiple financial institutions to freeze the scammer’s fraudulent bank account and retrieve $505,000 of the victim’s stolen funds before the money was transferred further,” the AFP said.
However, $300,000 of the victim’s stolen funds had already been transferred into cryptocurrency via a fraudulent Digital Currency Exchange (DCE) account.
The JPC3 were able to work with Pakistani National Response Centre for Cyber Crime (NR3C) and global cryptocurrency exchange Binance to freeze the fraudulent account and retrieve $272,000 of that $300,000.
A Pakistani national was suspected as a money mule, and it is alleged he opened the account in his name for other criminals to use to launder illicit funds.
The AFP warned Australians commonly become victims of BEC scams, but can protect themselves by setting up multi-factor authentication (MFA) and checking the accuracy of email addresses.
AFP Detective Acting Superintendent Darryl Parrish said BEC scams were increasingly complex and criminals either hacked into, or created near identical, business email accounts to manipulate financial transactions.
“Cybercriminals commonly target businesses and individuals making significant payments, like property transactions, in an attempt to divert victim’s funds to a fraudulent account,” he said.
“In many cases, cybercriminals gain access to a business’ email account, altering banking details and sending the new details to clients who unknowingly transfer funds to criminals.”
Self-reported BEC losses amounted to almost $80 million during 2022-2023, according to the Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC).
If you are a victim of cybercrime, report it to police using Report Cyber.