Breach of lease agreement scam by Kiyoshi Yukio of NPI Lease Company Limited
Date First Reported: January 2012
Primary Name Associated: Kiyoshi Yukio
Description of Potential Fraud:
Over 100 lawyers have reported to us that they’ve been contacted by the purported Kiyoshi Yukio of NPI Lease Company with regards to retaining their services to collect on a breach of a lease agreement. This is a new variant of the basic bad cheque scam in which the aim is to have a counterfeit cheque deposited in the lawyer’s trust account and good money disbursed to the fraudsters. As with business loan frauds where the debtor miraculously agrees to pay up right away, in this scam the ‘customer’ accused of breaching the lease agreement will no doubt also quickly send a (counterfeit) cheque for damages to the lawyers office, and the lawyer will be asked to wire the funds (minus fees and costs) to an offshore account.
Here is an example of the initial contact email:
From: Kiyoshi Yukio
Date: Fri, 6 Jan 2012 05:07:18
To: lawyer
Subject: re: lease matter
Sir,
We ask of your Services regarding a breach of lease, that was duly guaranteed, involving us, and a customer of ours in your country. We secured the equipment required by them and leased it to them for an agreed period of time, but they have since fallen short of the executed agreement we have in place.
We look forward to a response from you, so that we can provide you with more information. We will appreciate your helping us with our request regarding this matter.
Regards,
Kiyoshi Yukio
Head Of Administartion
NPI Lease Company Limited.
MITSUZAWA MINAMICHO 22-26-202
KANAGAWA – KU, Yokohama
Tel: 81-45-225-2321
How to handle a real or suspected fraud
If you have been targeted by any of these frauds, please forward any of the emails and supporting documents that you have received to [email protected].
If you suspect you are acting on a matter that might be a fraud, call LAWPRO at 1-800-410-1013 (416-598-5899). We will talk you through the common fraud scenarios we are seeing and help you spot red flags that may indicate you are being duped. This will help you ask appropriate questions of your client to determine if the matter is legitimate or not. If the matter you are acting on turns out to be a fraud and there is a potential claim, we will work with you to prevent the fraud and minimize potential claims costs.
If you have been successfully duped, please immediately notify LAWPRO as there may be a claim against you.
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January 06, 2012 at 4:41 pm, Wendy said:
thanks for posting this. I am a lawyer and received exactly the email you refer to and was wondering if it was spam.
January 10, 2012 at 10:27 am, Jovan Joanidis said:
I have received the same mail with the same content od January 6,2012, twice.
August 27, 2012 at 4:20 pm, Anne Marie Gibb said:
My father received this email in Nanaimo, BC on January 5, 2012 with the same content as above.