French magician tells of €400,000 bank scam

There are new warnings about bank Iban scams as the criminals who conned a French magician out of €415,000 by falsifying a RIB for a bank transfer went to court in October.

In 2022, Lyon-based Rino Baldi organised the construction of a workshop and warehouse to store his professional equipment, estimated to cost a total of €1.5million.

Once construction was underway, Mr Baldi received a call from his building firm to give an update on the project. The caller asked for €415,000 to fund the next phase of construction, providing an invoice and bank details for the payment. 

Mr Baldi sent these details to his bank, immediately approving the transfer.

Five days later, however, Mr Baldi received another call from the building firm, informing him they had not received the money. Upon verifying the bank details with the contractor, he noticed that the account numbers were different, and realised his money had been sent to the wrong person.

Mr Baldi went straight to the police to report the crime, and then to his local bank branch, but it was too late.

The scammers were arrested six months later. Their trial for organised fraud, money laundering and criminal conspiracy started in Lyon on October 6.

A total of 11 other victims filed complaints for fake bank account fraud by the same criminal organisation, who were found to be targeting construction companies.

The fraudsters had called Mr Baldi’s building company pretending to be his accountant and asked them to send an invoice. Upon receiving this information, the scammers were able to modify the official document, substituting the construction firm’s bank account details for their own, Mr Baldi’s lawyer, Jean Sannier, told FranceInfo.

Change to bank transfers

New European regulation came into place on October 9, requiring banks and electronic money platforms to implement a ‘payee verification system’ for transfers. It aims to ensure the transfer beneficiary’s name matches the Iban number of the account that is receiving the transfer. See page 10 for more. 

Members of the public are warned to be wary of callers requesting payments or bank transfers and ensure invoices are sent from an official source.

Note that fraudsters are sometimes able to use telephone software to alter the number that appears on the screen of a victim’s phone – a practice known as ‘spoofing’. 

Never hand out personal information, especially bank details, to people you do not know.