Mumbai: Food firm loses Rs 14 lakh to fake airline contract

A Mumbaibased businessman allegedly fell prey to a sophisticated maninthemiddle MITM cyber fraud losing approximately Rs 14 lakh to a fake airline contract renewal scheme The complainant who owns a food production company was contacted via email by someone posing as an Emirates representative and was asked to pay a ldquomandatory registration refundable depositrdquo of 16200This particular incident of fraud took place in February According to the complainant their food production company provides catering services to various airlines and is a wellknown name in both the wholesale and retail sweets business The complainant who is the companyrsquos director approached the police in the last week of March Speaking extensively with midday he detailed how the scheme unfoldedldquoWe were an old supplier to Emirates in Dubai UAE The scamster posed as an Emirates Flight Catering employee and sent us documents for vendor registration along with a request for a refundable fee to supply sweets and snacks to the company Since we are old suppliers to them we shared our company details for registration However in the first week of March we discovered that the employee we had been communicating withmdashAbdullah Mansoormdashdid not existrdquo said the complainant adding that the alleged fraudster had impersonated F Masoor from the procurement departmentldquoNobody would be able to tell the difference between the real and the fake Even my employees and I who have dealt with the real F Masoor couldnt detect that we were dealing with an impersonatorrdquo he addedAs per the vendor registration policy the victimrsquos company was asked to 16200 as a 100 per cent refundable vendor registration fee to be eligible for tenders and supply requirementsDuring the course of the lsquodealrsquo the scamster provided all the necessary documents including terms of trade a vendor agreement printed on The Emirates Group letterhead and an officiallooking Emirates stamp with a legitimate address Believing the documents to be authentic the victimrsquos company transferred the money through an internal bank transfer via SWIFTmdasha global banking system used for secure crossborder and interbank transactionsAfter receiving the money the scamster demanded an additional payment of AED 300000 However the complainant refused to comply The fraud came to light when the complainant contacted an Emirates Flight Catering representative only to learn that no employee named Abdullah Mansoor existed in their team The representative also revealed that similar fraud cases had occurred in Dubai using the same modus operandiAlong with the Mumbai policersquos cyber cell the complainant and his team coordinated with the Dubai Police and Interpol to seek clarity and assistance ldquoWe had multiple communications with the banks the police and Interpol and the cyber police here stood strongly with us swiftly assisting at every steprdquo said the complainantHe added ldquoWe were cheated as the international transfer was processed through the bank via SWIFT to an IBAN International Bank Account Number which we later discovered through the bank belonged to a person named Bibek Kumar Loniya However there were no funds left in the account as the money we sent had already been withdrawn Our bank and the police have informed Emirates NBD Bank about the fraud and they have marked a lien on the accountrdquoThe victimrsquos complaint was registered as a First Information Report FIR on March 28 and the Mumbai policersquos cyber cell has launched a formal investigation ldquoThis is a case of MITMMIM attacks wherein hackers intercept and manipulate communication between legitimate parties Business owners are advised to verify contractrelated emails through official channels and exercise caution when processing large paymentsrdquo said a police officialRs 69lakhAddl amount fraudster tried to extract from victimWhat is an MITM attackA maninthemiddle MITM attack is a form of cybercrime wherein an attacker secretly intercepts and potentially alters communication between two parties making them believe they are directly interacting with each other This type of attack is especially common in emailbased financial transactions where fraudsters manipulate payment details to redirect funds into their own accounts The attacker can access and alter the data and also inject malicious codeRecent MITM incidents in MumbaiDecember 2024 Cyber fraudsters compromised the email accounts of two senior executives at an Andheribased chemical manufacturing company By impersonating them the fraudsters instructed an Egyptbased client to transfer 153600 approximately R133 crore to a fraudulent bank accountMarch 2024 A Tardeobased school fell prey to an MITM attack after a fraudster masquerading as a contractor sent emails requesting payment for a cafeteria project Unaware of the scam the school transferred Rs 873 lakh to a bogus account Fortunately due to timely intervention by the cyber police the fraudulent bank account was frozen leading to the recovery of Rs 826 lakh