Chinese group swindles $18.5 million from Indian arm of Italian company: Economic Times

[InfoSec News <alerts () infosecnews org>]

https://in.reuters.com/article/us-mairetecnimont-india-fraud/chinese-group-swindles-18-5-million-from-indian-arm-of-italian-company-economic-times-idINKCN1P40KE

By Abhirup Roy; Editing by Himani Sarkar
Reuters
January 9, 2019

MUMBAI (Reuters) - A group of Chinese hackers robbed 1.3 billion rupees ($18.45 
million) from the Indian unit of Tecnimont SpA through an elaborate cyber fraud 
that included impersonating the Italian engineering firm’s chief executive, the 
Economic Times reported.

The scammers sent emails to the India head of Tecnimont, part of the publicly 
traded Maire Tecnimont, from an account that looked similar to one used by the 
Italian group’s CEO and also organized conference calls to discuss a 
"confidential" acquisition in China, the ET report said, citing a complaint 
made with the police.

The hackers then convinced the India chief to transfer the money for the 
acquisition in three tranches from India to banks in Hong Kong, saying the 
amount could not be moved from Italy due to regulatory issues, the report said.

During the conference calls, various people in the hacking group pretended to 
be the CEO, senior executives of Tecnimont and a top lawyer based in 
Switzerland, ET said.

[...]

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