FinancialCrimeRiskOfficers.com

"Brits Are Listening To Ant McPartlin And They’re Raking In Millions From Home" screams the headline - then the e-mail launches into a pitch that is a near replica of what we've seen before. It's using Ant McPartlin as a hook but also Phillip Schofield who is currently riding a wave of publicity.

In Harris County, Texas, a lawyer who was disbarred in 2016, has become the focus of attention : the District Attorney, Kim Ogg, has issued an appeal for information that might identify victims of fraud by David A. Chaumette.

Should financial institutions consider the character of customers as a risk factor? A recent case in Australia suggests that it might be wise to do so.

It's development of an old scam but it's bizarrely humorous.

This is so amateur that it's worth our publishing it. The "reply to" address is at a free and anonymous mail account in Hungary: georgievakristalina01@vipmail.hu . But there is something interesting.

For the background to this story, see here: https://www.pleasebeinformed.c... and here: https://www.pleasebeinformed.c...

Now the fraudsters, or their associates, are back. And this time they have new telephone numbers.

You know that thing about airport security, where no one gets on a flight if they aren't who they say they are? And you know that the USA is so obsessed with airport security under its "war on terror" thing that all flights are locked down tighter than a tight thing?

It's not true and this document fraud shows how lax security really is in the US aviation industry. Remember this the next time some one questions a detail on your ticket at check-in. It's the old thing - the bigger the lie, the less people are likely to spot it.

The Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) has imposed additional conditions on the Australian financial services (AFS) licence of Societe Generale Securities Australia Pty Ltd (SGSAPL) to ensure compliance with clients' money regulations.

You just know it's going to be a fraud when the subject line reads "[email address], KINDLY GET BACK TO ME ASAP!!!"

When the "from" is a pretentious name for a law firm ('SMITH GLOBAL LAW') and the address an obviously fictitious "Smithlegaloffice@Un.org" The deal is almost sealed. That final nail in the coffin of the approach is the return address: Smithlegaloffice@mail.ru . If he'd sent from that, our filters which automatically delete undelivered and unread items from mail.ru would have meant it didn't reach its target.

But we're glad it did - for it's a demonstration of the cyclical nature of fraud. This is a genuinely vintage classic.

Well, hello, Kate Winslett. We bet you just love this!

Fraudsters are like fishermen: they dangle a juicy titbit and expect you to snap it up and get hooked.

But often it's not actually a worm, it's fake meat, a plant-based concoction that has artificially induced flavours and aromas. It misrepresents itself by appearance.

That's what this scam is all about and only the names have been changed because J.K. Rowling is back in the news.

So, your EncroChat phone is dead. It's the the end of the world, though. While the UK's National Crime Agency and other law enforcement bodies around the world were able to attack the EncroChat system, disable its web presence and take control of its servers, and to make an extraordinary number of arrests and spectacular seizures of portable assets, the tech that the criminals relied on wasn't particularly clever and while it may have been proprietary, it was not unique. In the UK, the same mobile phone number is used by some selling both EncroChat and a rival system. Private bankers, lawyers and others have a problem that has, so far, not been talked about in the excitement of the initial arrests.

The conviction of a solicitor and his practice manager on fraud charges is bad enough.

But what's worse is that the practice manager seems to have been able to get into positions of trust despite a demonstrably untrustworthy history.

As spam-filters become more alert to spam-scams, many criminals have moved on from selling overpriced, poor quality or non-existent facemasks and the like.

Following the trend set by UK TV advertising where on-line gambling has reached near-epidemic proportions, there is an increased rash of gambling spams. But the most significant trend is to focus on the lifestyle changes faced by millions as they sit at home wondering what to do next.

As COVID-19 continues to impact heavily on social and business life across the region we have prepared this weekly summary of what the business situation is like across Asia generally. Our updates, provided by Peter Coleman of AEGIS INTERACTIF ASIA, will look at what business travel and activity is possible and what can be done on the ground in any countries that remain open for domestic business activity.