New CSO Figures Show Fraud Offences in Ireland Almost Doubled in Last 12 Months

Fraud offences almost doubled in the past year, according to the latest recorded crime figures for the 12 months to March 2022 released by the Central Statistics Office.

The CSO says the increase of 88% was largely driven by unauthorised transactions and attempts to obtain banking or personal information by phone or online.

There were 17,354 fraud offences recorded for the twelve months up to the end of March 2022, an increase of 88% or 8,135 compared with last year.

This reflects the increase in so-called “smishing” and “phishing” offences where fraudsters try and, in many cases, succeed in stealing people’s money by getting their banking and personal information either online or on the phone.

The CSO doesn’t publish separate statistics for Invoice Redirect Fraud but An Garda Síochána have advised of the continuing existence of Invoice Redirect Fraud and urges businesses to remind employees to treat any request to change supplier bank account details with extreme caution.

In the recent past the Gardai have recorded actual losses from Invoice Redirect Fraud amounting to over €700,000 in a single month.

In Invoice Redirect Fraud cases, criminals send emails businesses pretending to be a legitimate supplier asking them change the bank account details that the business holds on record to bank account details that ultimately benefit the criminals.

The criminal intention is that when the legitimate supplier next sends an invoice to the company seeking payment for services rendered or goods supplied, the victim business acts on the new banking instructions and sends the payment to the criminal’s bank account where the funds are quickly transferred or withdrawn.

These requests can also come by way of letter or phone call so any such requests should immediately be verified as follows:

• Ensure that all staff are aware of this type of fraud and that all requests to change bank account details are brought to the attention of a supervisor for consideration.
• Always make a phone call or direct contact with a known contact at the suppliers that has requested the change of account details to verify whether the request is correct.
• Ensure the contact is made independently and never respond directly by using the contact details contained in the email or provided by the sender as you may be contacting the fraudster.

In many instances the business does not know it is a victim of this crime until sometime later when the legitimate supplier sends a reminder invoice for payment.

Businesses must ensure that they have robust policies and procedures in place to deal with requests of this nature including escalating the decision-making function to supervisory positions and making direct contact with a trusted known person in the suppliers organisation. In this context it is imperative that a suitable known contact person is identified before a business relationship commences with the supplier.

If a business relationship has already commenced and no such checks are in place and a request of this nature is received; independent contact should be made with the supplier to verify the contents of the email. Under no circumstances should contact details contained in the email or attachments be relied upon to verify the request whether these consist of a physical address, an email address or a phone number. In that context, all existing business relationships should be reviewed without delay and defensive policies and procedures put in place.

It is important to note that victims of Invoice Redirect Fraud range from very small businesses to large corporations and the consequences of falling for a scam of this nature can be catastrophic and can result in the closure of businesses and redundancies so all employees should receive training in relation to avoiding this type of scam.

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