A Polish entrepreneur was contacted by e-mail by his long-standing foreign business partner. He asked him to purchase a machine in China on his behalf. The parties often helped each other with purchases in this way. The Polish entrepreneur, suspecting nothing, made the purchase and a payment of USD 20,000. A few days after the payment, in a telephone conversation completely unrelated to the subject of the purchase, it turned out that someone had impersonated the contractor and that the real one knew nothing about the purchase of the machine. The Pole fell victim to a fraudster who impersonated his friend, took over his email and used his knowledge of typical commercial behavior between the parties.
At this point, the Polish entrepreneur contacted our law firm. We managed to find and contact a large entity in China which received our client’s money. The Chinese company was very surprised by our information. It turns out that a fraudster, located in the company’s branch in Nigeria was using their account to receive money and pass it on. After our intervention, the Chinese machinery vendor refunded the full amount paid and apologized for the fraud committed by their subsidiary company. The customer recovered the money after a few weeks without incurring excessive costs.
