Cyber fraudsters turn i to 1 in mail id, dupe maritime company of Rs 30 lakh

An official said the Mumbai-based maritime company that has offices in Delhi, Chennai and Cochin operated out of the eastern suburbs of the city. They worked as brokers for goods sent via ship from other countries to India.
In its complaint to the police, the Mumbai-based company said they frequently worked with a US-based company named Air Seven Seas for the past 20 years. The two companies discussed various payments through e-mails whenever they updated their financial channels.

On August 19 this year, the manager and finance head of the Mumbai-based company received an e-mail purportedly from the US-based company whose mail ID was finance3@air7seas.us. The US company asked them to update the bank account in which the due payment had to be transferred by them. Accordingly, the Mumbai-based company changed the bank account details and over a period of time paid nearly Rs 29 lakh to the new account in September. On October 3, when the Mumbai-based company mailed their US counterparts about the payment, they said no such payment had been received and that no account had been updated.

When they checked the e-mail again, they realized that the mail ID was finance3@a1r7seas.us and realized that they had been duped following which they filed a complaint with the cyber police.

An officer said that an FIR has been registered in the case on Thursday and they have begun investigation in the matter.

“This is a typical ‘man in the middle’ cyber attack where fraudsters hack mail IDs of companies and then change the ID of the company to receive payment slightly and dupe the other company,” the official said.