CEO fraudsters active with a new trick

Companies in the canton of Zug have been contacted by fraudsters in the past few days. People claiming to be employees of the company sent emails asking to have their wages paid to an overseas account. The police have issued a warning and a call for special caution.

The unknown perpetrator(s) proceeded in the same way in all cases, according to the report from the Zug law enforcement authorities. The Human Resources department or line manager received an email purporting to be on behalf of an employee, asking to have their wages paid into a foreign account. The emails appeared to come from the Email address of the respective employees, but were actually sent from a number of registered email addresses. The Zug police are currently aware of two cases, although these attempts were unsuccessful.

Police give tips

The Zug police recommend exercising a healthy mistrust of such mails, and give the following tips:

• Raise the awareness of your employees about such frauds, and provide information about any new scams.
• Verify any such requests or the provision of new employee account information. Always use a separate communication channel for this. The safest option is to make a personal phone call.
• Check email addresses carefully and be sure to re-enter them manually. If in doubt, never use the reply function from the email application.

According to the investigations to date, it must be assumed that the perpetrator is a professional, well-connected criminal organisation.