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Hello Guys,
A little background on the subject.
I have a client who is outside UK and has been defrauded close to £900,000 by individuals (husband and wife who essentially acted as brokers in my opinion) here in the UK.
The clients company is based in a different country outside UK is involved in several construction business and they tend to buy equipments from all over the world.
The owner was introduced to these guys in the UK through his "mutual friend" I guess that answers the issue about trust etc. Obviously that was a negligence from their part but from my understanding they bought several equipments from UK through different brokers without any problems.
I just got an email with countless attachments showing all the paper trail such as : initial e-mail correspondences, invoices from UK, shipping documents (such as Bill of Lading from MAERSK LINE) etc. Evidently everything here seem to be fake considering nothing was received on that end.
So far I've checked with Companies House and found out that the company used in this fraud was shut late last year, the other company where the money was transferred into (its an accounting firm) still exists and has a website address etc.
I wish to clarify that HSBC is the bank that was used to receive the money in the UK...under the name of the accounting firm.
I've checked the names and directors of the brokers (seem to be husband and wife team), the man isn't british national (just not sure how he was the company secretary).
According to the Excel document sent to me by the client shows there were series of payment made into UK and bank accounts. I wish to clarify that the 900k was not sent at once but rather in series of payments and that's what it totals.
Now considering the company is now shut does this mean its the end of everything? Because its evident that fraud has taken place here.
I've asked the client to give me a written consent (power of attorney) to follow up on this matter but I feel like I should involve police as well as pursue legal avenues
Any inputs on how best to handle this would be greatly appreciated.
A little background on the subject.
I have a client who is outside UK and has been defrauded close to £900,000 by individuals (husband and wife who essentially acted as brokers in my opinion) here in the UK.
The clients company is based in a different country outside UK is involved in several construction business and they tend to buy equipments from all over the world.
The owner was introduced to these guys in the UK through his "mutual friend" I guess that answers the issue about trust etc. Obviously that was a negligence from their part but from my understanding they bought several equipments from UK through different brokers without any problems.
I just got an email with countless attachments showing all the paper trail such as : initial e-mail correspondences, invoices from UK, shipping documents (such as Bill of Lading from MAERSK LINE) etc. Evidently everything here seem to be fake considering nothing was received on that end.
So far I've checked with Companies House and found out that the company used in this fraud was shut late last year, the other company where the money was transferred into (its an accounting firm) still exists and has a website address etc.
I wish to clarify that HSBC is the bank that was used to receive the money in the UK...under the name of the accounting firm.
I've checked the names and directors of the brokers (seem to be husband and wife team), the man isn't british national (just not sure how he was the company secretary).
According to the Excel document sent to me by the client shows there were series of payment made into UK and bank accounts. I wish to clarify that the 900k was not sent at once but rather in series of payments and that's what it totals.
Now considering the company is now shut does this mean its the end of everything? Because its evident that fraud has taken place here.
I've asked the client to give me a written consent (power of attorney) to follow up on this matter but I feel like I should involve police as well as pursue legal avenues
Any inputs on how best to handle this would be greatly appreciated.
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