Nigerian cybercrime group is behind the online theft of BGN 12 million from a Bulgarian company

A Nigerian criminal group was behind the biggest hacker attack in Bulgaria against a Bulgarian company, which resulted in the siphoning off of BGN 12 million, said Vladimir Dimitrov, the Head of the Cybercrime unit at the Chief Directorate for Combating Orgnaised Crime.(CDCOC). Every week a company in the country falls victim to a computer crime, it emerged during an international cybersecurity forum on September 11.

A rise in cybercrimes in recent months has been reported by the Chief Directorate for Combating Orgnaised Crime. The most common scams involve siphoning off significant funds through change of IBAN, fake investment platforms and dubious websites for buying new cars.

Every 4 days a Bulgarian company falls victim to a changed bank account.

Cybercrimes related to hacking of inter-company correspondence and change of bank accounts cause the greatest financial damage.

"Every four days we have a Bulgarian company that is a victim of this type of crime, and in June this year a commercial company in our country was defrauded of 6.5 million US dollars," said Yavor Serafimov, director of the Chief Directorte for Combating Organised Crime.

He explained who is behind the fraud with changed bank accounts and specifically behind the latest hacking attack, which so far holds a record for stolen funds.

We are talking about Nigerian organised crime groups who are accessing the emails of Bulgarian companies. At exactly the right moment, they replace the bank account to which the Bulgarian company is to send the next payment, and in this way Bulgarian companies are being defrauded of tens of thousands of euros."

Another very serious crime of threatening proportions is investment fraud.

"Almost every 3, 4 days we get a citizen who says: 'When I was surfing the internet I came across an advertisement for an investment platform, I visited it. There they asked for my name and phone number, I gave them voluntarily. Then they called me and offered me to invest in a certain platform". In this way, almost every week we have people who in the last 5-6 months have lost sum of money to the amount of 20,000 euros, 50,000 euros, misled to believe that they are going to trade some cryptocurrencies or some stocks, supposedly their money will increase. In practice, they remain without the so-called investment, and there is no investment at all," Vladimir Dimitrov explained.

Scams with websites offering cheap new cars to naive buyers are also on the rise.

"Almost every month we have a Bulgarian who tries to buy a new car from a European website. communicates via Whatsapp or otherwise with a supposedly potential seller. The money is sent to bank accounts that are controlled by the so called “bank mules”. The car does not arrive, the money is gone. As a result of such scams we have people who have lost some 18-20 thousand euros," said Vladimir Dimitrov.

The most frequent reasons for cyber-crimes are due to using the same passwords on e-mails and bank accounts, logging into suspicious websites or when using free –of-charge and unprotected internet.