Important notification! The National Bank of KR warns about increasing fraud cases

The National Bank of the Kyrgyz Republic reports that cases have recently become more frequent when, under the pretext of investing in the economy of Kyrgyzstan, fraudsters from other countries deceive our entrepreneurs.

The scheme works like this:

1. "Investor" contacts a partner in Kyrgyzstan and offers to invest in a joint project. The amounts run into millions or even billions of dollars or euros.

2. Copies of documents supposedly confirming the transfer of funds are sent to the Kyrgyz partner.

3. A person goes to the bank, shows documents on the transfer, but does not receive money. And the bank cannot help in any way, because in fact no one sent the transfer.

4. In the process of negotiations on investing funds in a local business, the so-called "investor" as a prerequisite may inform the local partner about the need to use other systems (for example, TELEX, RTGS) other than the SWIFT system, or requires the mandatory availability of an additional SWIFT service gpi (SWIFT Global Payments Innovation) or connecting to SWIFT via Alliance Lite2, or additional details such as IBAN for transferring funds.

Fraudsters may say that there were difficulties with the transfer, or that the money was sent and most likely they are stuck in transit.

5. A businessman interested in the implementation of the project is told about the complex banking system in the Kyrgyz Republic and offered to deal with obtaining funds himself.

What do fake investors offer?

Instead of receiving investment funds, a company or a businessman may lose his own funds. They are offered not to wait for the bank to deal with the transfer, and to transfer part of the funds to a partner in Kyrgyzstan in order to start the project.

They may say that for a successful transfer of funds, additional documents need to be issued, and for this it is necessary to send a small amount - 500 US dollars, 1 thousand euros, etc. For the company, the money seems to be small and businessmen peck at the bait.

In fact, there is no transfer, so the bank cannot issue funds. Then local companies or their representatives apply to the National Bank with a request to assist in receiving transfers. But in this case, the National Bank is powerless.

In the course of consideration of such requests, cases of sending by pseudo-investors copies of incorrect payment documents (in other words, fake ones), complicating the process and the logic of sending a transfer are clarified. As a result, there are questions about the integrity of the "investors". What does the most popular SWIFT system say about this? Since basically in such schemes of pseudo-investors terminology and topics around the SWIFT system are often mentioned, the National Bank is in constant contact with the SWIFT company and consults on information security and fraud in the SWIFT system.

On this occasion, SWIFT informed the National Bank that in recent years, SWIFT has periodically received requests from users from different countries regarding cases of contacting bank customers and the banks themselves by various companies that present themselves as investors and promise to conclude large contracts or investments in significant amounts.

At the same time, such pseudo-investors put forward the use by corporations or banks of the SWIFT Alliance Lite2 interface or the SWIFT gpi service as mandatory conditions for concluding a transaction.

According to SWIFT's analysis of such cases, they were qualified as fraudulent activities against corporations or banks of SWIFT users.

It is important to know:

“The lack of an Alliance Lite2 interface or a SWIFT gpi service for a user cannot serve as an obstacle to making any transactions through SWIFT, including investments,” the NBKR warns.

If potential partners insist on this, this situation should definitely be qualified as suspicious. In any case, the conclusion of any contractual obligations for significant amounts should be preceded by a procedure for studying the partner, his business reputation, financial statements, etc., in accordance with the norms of national legislation and international practice.

Currently, almost all banks in the world use the SWIFT system of cross-border payments for settlements between themselves. Kyrgyzstan is no exception in this respect. SWIFT protects data from unauthorized access, guarantees the completeness of transmitted messages, as well as their delivery, and ensures the service is available to users 24/7.

How to recognize scammers?

The inability of a large foreign bank to send a transfer via SWIFT should already be suspicious. After all, the disconnection of a financial and credit institution from the system may indicate the problems of this bank in the field of combating the financing of terrorist activities and the legalization of criminal proceeds or violations of banking activities and fraud.

You need to carefully approach the choice of partners, especially when it comes to large sums. If an unknown fund, firm or businessman suddenly offers to inject millions of dollars or euros into the country's economy, then this should alert. It is worth carefully studying a potential partner so as not to fall for the bait of scammers.

The National Bank recommends that you pay more attention to the process of studying and choosing your partners, especially when agreeing on large amounts of "investment", as well as the terms of the contracts.

Banks around the world use SWIFT precisely because the system is as secure as possible and provides all its participants with access to a 24-hour high-speed banking information transfer network. If you cannot receive a transfer at a bank, then it is worth making claims to a potential partner, because:

- for Kyrgyz banks there is no interest in delaying the issuance of an incoming transfer. It is more profitable for them to give out money faster and earn a commission on this;

- if there are problems with the transfer along the way, then only the sender and the sending bank can investigate these problems. The Kyrgyz Bank and the National Bank will not be able to help in this matter.

Source: https://www.tazabek.kg/news:1699851/?from=akipress-ios