400,000 for fire engines: City falls for fake email!

Fraudsters knew about the fire department deal

A frightening case from Dülmen (NRW) shows that cyber criminals are becoming increasingly sophisticated. The town council fell victim to a professional scam and transferred 400,000 euros for two fire engines - not to the actual manufacturer, however, but to a foreign account set up by fraudsters.

By the time the mistake was discovered, it was already too late. The money had long since been transferred on and could no longer be retrieved. "We tried everything - unfortunately in vain," explained city spokesperson André Siemes to the press.

Professional fraud - no chance of getting your money back

Particularly perfidious: the perpetrators knew exactly that the city had actually ordered two new fire engines. They not only knew the details of the purchase process, but apparently also the manufacturer and the approximate date of payment.

With this knowledge, they created a deceptively genuine invoice and sent it to the city council. Visually and in terms of content, the document could hardly be distinguished from a genuine invoice - with one crucial exception: the bank details led to an account abroad that had been set up specifically for the fraud.

Without arousing suspicion, the city council transferred the amount - and the money went straight into unknown hands. The mistake was only discovered later, but by then the fraudsters had long since covered all their tracks.

Why the city did not become suspicious

After the fraud came to light, Dülmen's mayor Carsten Hövekamp (CDU) defended his employees: "The fraudsters were so professional that anyone could have fallen for it."

However, the city is not left to bear the financial burden of the loss alone - the manufacturer of the fire engines is also covering part of the loss. Despite the fraud, the delivery of the ordered vehicles is not at risk. One has already been delivered and the second is due to follow in the course of the year.

New security measures to prevent recurrence

Following this costly mistake, the city is taking action. IT security has been strengthened and employees have been trained to recognize fraudulent emails more quickly in future. Bank details in particular are to be checked even more thoroughly in future.

"We're now even more careful with external emails in particular," explained Mayor Hövekamp. Because this case shows impressively that a moment of carelessness can quickly cost several hundred thousand euros.

Cyber criminals are becoming more and more sophisticated, and even public authorities are not safe from such attacks. Those who are not careful end up paying a high price - in this case 400,000 euros!