SIPA warns: Legal entities from BiH targeted by fraud, one company damaged for one million euros!

(Patria) - The State Investigation and Protection Agency (SIPA) has observed fraudulent activities targeting legal entities from Bosnia and Herzegovina, carried out by unknown individuals.

The fraudulent activity is carried out by sending altered payment instructions to legal entities from Bosnia and Herzegovina, via e-mail, for their foreign suppliers, without the consent and knowledge of these suppliers, which results in the issuance of payment orders.

In this way, funds from the accounts of legal entities held with commercial banks in our country are transferred to foreign accounts controlled by the perpetrators of the fraud. The transferred funds are immediately further transferred and ultimately withdrawn in cash from one of the foreign accounts, thereby causing damage to legal entities from Bosnia and Herzegovina.

A significant number of reports have been filed by legal entities from Bosnia and Herzegovina who have suffered damage in large monetary amounts, including one case where a legal entity suffered damage exceeding one million euros.

The entity banking agencies and commercial banks in Bosnia and Herzegovina have been informed of the above, and they have been advised to take available measures of enhanced control when processing foreign payments in order to minimize this phenomenon which causes damage to their clients.