Singaporean Authorities and Interpol Recover $40 Million from Massive BEC Scam

With the help of Interpol, Singaporean authorities have made one the largest fund recoveries stemming from scams, specifically from business email compromise (BEC) schemes.

We often hear about consumer scams because they are so prevalent, but there’s a specific scam designed to go after high-ranking people in organizations. It’s called business email compromise and it works much like consumer scams.

Criminals trick employees into sending money to the wrong account, address, etc. The emails look legitimate and tare often accompanied by some form of social engineering. In many cases, attackers already know how an email should look and have a precise target in an organization.

“On 23 July 2024, a commodity firm based in Singapore filed a police report stating that they had fallen victim to a business email compromise scam, in which a scammer obtains access to or impersonates a business email account to deceive employees into transferring money to their bank account,” the Interpol press release states.

“Unaware, the firm transferred USD 42.3 million to the fake supplier on 19 July, only discovering the crime four days later when the genuine supplier said it had not been paid.”

Singaporean authorities asked Interpol for help and finally tracked the money to a bank account registered in the tiny island nation of Timor Leste.

“Timor Leste authorities arrested a total of seven suspects in relation to the scam through follow-up investigations, leading to the further recovery of more than USD 2 million. Steps are being taken for the return of the stolen funds to the victim in Singapore,” Interpol added.

One reason why this operation succeeded was the quick response time, as it took less than 10 days between the first scam email and until the arrests were made in Timor Leste.