Equipment / Inventory Purchase Fraud
In equipment / inventory purchase fraud scams, a lawyer is contacted to help an overseas business collect on a commercial debt from a purported borrower in the lawyer’s jurisdiction, or facilitate the purchase of a large piece of commercial equipment (often a dredger). The fraudster will provide documentation about the loan, sale of equipment, or whatever else is involved in the debt or transaction. A retainer agreement will be signed, but the fraudster will delay in paying the retainer fee. Instead, the lawyer will be asked to deduct any fees from the debt payment.
The lawyer will be asked to deposit the cheque from the debt collection sale or in the trust account and wire the balance (after fees are deducted) to an overseas account. Of course, the cheque is fraudulent and the lawyer will be left with a shortfall in the trust account.
In this type of scam, the fraudsters will often use the details of a real company, including web address, names of real employees and the mailing address. The contact phone number and email, however, will be fake. We’ve seen the same company names used several times, with only the name of the fraudster changing.
In other variations of the scam, the fraudster may claim to be private lender or a firm looking to outsource debt collection work to third parties lawyers.
Below is a list of names associated with this type of fraud.
, Date First Reported:
, Date First Reported:
Aioko, Linda Date First Reported: August 2015
Akio, Shigeo Date First Reported: September 2015
Akiyama, Masaki Date First Reported: August 2014
Amari, Izumi Date First Reported: August 2015
Anderson, Richard Date First Reported: September 2015
Ariel, Liam Date First Reported: October 2015
Asta, Kevin Date First Reported: January 2016
Bakker, Andre Date First Reported: October 2016
Ban, Chizuki Date First Reported: September 2015
Bates, Anthony Date First Reported: July 2016
Bauwens , Goya Date First Reported: July 2015
Bernard, Alain Date First Reported: April 2016
Blom, John Date First Reported: May 2018
Bonhof, Rene Date First Reported: May 2018
Boosma, Johan Date First Reported: February 2018
Campburn, Clyde Date First Reported: February 2017
Chau, Suzuki Date First Reported: March 2017
Chung, Ken Date First Reported: April 2016
Craig, Jim Date First Reported: October 2016
Da, Chao Date First Reported: April 2015
De Haas, Erik Date First Reported: January 2015
De Roeck, Nic Date First Reported: February 2015
Dean, Chris Date First Reported: April 2016
Dietze , Rudolf Date First Reported: April 2017
Dingler, Gerhard Date First Reported: August 2016
Dobber, Alex Date First Reported: March 2016
Edward, Lorne Date First Reported: October 2015
Ethan, John Date First Reported: April 2023
Fang, Lei Date First Reported: January 2017
Flowers, Carla Date First Reported: October 2015
Foster, Dennis Date First Reported: March 2016
Fox, Hilary Date First Reported: March 2016
Fujishiro, Takao Date First Reported: October 2017
Fulkerson, John Date First Reported: October 2022
Gan, Wah Teng Date First Reported: March 2017
Gen, Liqin Date First Reported: November 2015
Gentilini, Marco Date First Reported: January 2016
Gibbs, Robert Date First Reported: August 2023
Giovanni, Philips Date First Reported: December 2015
Haerens, Piet Date First Reported: June 2015
Hale, Bobby Date First Reported: May 2014
Hammet, Chris Date First Reported: June 2014
Harald, Gunter Date First Reported: October 2015
Hardeman, Jos Date First Reported: February 2017
Hardy, James Date First Reported: March 2016
Harland, Leon Date First Reported: April 2018
Harper, Cris Date First Reported: October 2015
Harvie, Craig Date First Reported: February 2018
Heerema, Pieter Date First Reported: September 2016
Henderson , Mark Date First Reported: November 2016
Herbert, Matthieu Date First Reported: December 2014
Himura, Leo Date First Reported: October 2015
Hong, Sok Date First Reported: January 2018
Hong, Yan Gilbert Date First Reported: November 2015
Hu, Zhi-Yuan Date First Reported: December 2014
Inamoto, Alex Date First Reported: November 2014
Isamu, Emi Date First Reported: November 2015
Jansen, Eugen Date First Reported: September 2015
Jinghua, Ju Date First Reported: September 2015
Ka-Shing , Li Date First Reported: July 2015
Kaashoek, Gijs Date First Reported: June 2016
Kamermans, Paul Date First Reported: August 2016
Khang, Emiko Date First Reported: July 2020
Kloos, Rob Date First Reported: March 2016
Kojima, Akio Date First Reported: December 2014
Kojima, Tokuaki Date First Reported: February 2019
Laarhoven, Ronald Date First Reported: September 2016
Lee, John Date First Reported: March 2016
Lee, Leonard Date First Reported: August 2014
Long, Walter Date First Reported: March 2016
Luciano, Vince Date First Reported: August 2015
Marino, Smith Date First Reported: June 2016
Marino, Smith Date First Reported: April 2016
Martin, Pitt Date First Reported: October 2015
Mateusz, Wiktor Date First Reported: September 2020
McLelland, Deke Date First Reported: April 2016
Meetun, Cavita Date First Reported: October 2015
Meyer, Hank Date First Reported: May 2017
Mizuno, Nao Date First Reported: September 2015
Mohsen, Imad Date First Reported: October 2016
Moore, Lucas Date First Reported: June 2016
Morgan , Jeffrey Date First Reported: September 2015
Mosvold, Paul Date First Reported: July 2016
Nelson, Lia Date First Reported: May 2015
Nelson, Lia Date First Reported: June 2015
Newton , Reegan Date First Reported: July 2015
Olander, Carl Date First Reported: September 2015
Onkyo, Watabe Date First Reported: March 2016
Peggy, Chew Date First Reported: July 2015
Petersen, James Date First Reported: February 2018
Pieters, Tim Date First Reported: November 2015
Price, Vernon Date First Reported: November 2015
Quan, Dang Vi Date First Reported: March 2017
Raymer, Heather Date First Reported: June 2018
Reals, Collin Date First Reported: October 2015
Riccardo, Morris Date First Reported: January 2016
Robbe , Johan Date First Reported: July 2016
Robert, Ryan Date First Reported: November 2014
Roberts, Bobbie Date First Reported: July 2016
Robin, Fenley Date First Reported: March 2016
Sasaki, Kunihiko Date First Reported: January 2016
Scott, Charles Date First Reported: September 2016
Seagrott, Peter Date First Reported: January 2023
Seidel, Gary Date First Reported: March 2015
Shimizu, Saito Date First Reported: August 2015
Silva, Nick Date First Reported: April 2015
Smart, Michael Date First Reported: February 2017
Smejkal, Ivan Date First Reported: July 2015
Smit, Tijmen Date First Reported: February 2017
Smith, James Date First Reported: August 2016
Snippe, Wim Date First Reported: August 2017
Somany, Vikram Date First Reported: August 2016
Song, Tai Date First Reported: October 2015
Spiro, David Date First Reported: May 2017
Stagier, Hans Date First Reported: April 2015
Steltner, Harald Date First Reported: January 2016
Suetomi, Ryo Date First Reported: August 2015
Sumitomo, Taro Date First Reported: September 2015
Szeto, Yuk Tak Date First Reported: December 2014
Tan, Robert Date First Reported: October 2015
Tore, William Date First Reported: November 2015
Tsukasa, Yuto Date First Reported: April 2017
Tummers, Fer Date First Reported: December 2016
Vermolen, Lorenzo Date First Reported: February 2017
Vlendre, Rob Date First Reported: July 2016
Voghel , Donald Date First Reported: June 2017
Wagenaarz, Ivan Date First Reported: April 2018
Wahlberg, David Date First Reported: August 2015
Walters, Stan Date First Reported: November 2019
Walton, Allen Date First Reported: August 2015
Warren, Albert Date First Reported: February 2015
Weimin, Huang Date First Reported: April 2017
West, Eden Date First Reported: August 2015
Williams, Mark Date First Reported: January 2018
Williams, Scott Date First Reported: March 2015
Wong, Lee Date First Reported: February 2016
Wong, Chen Date First Reported: August 2017
Xu, Zuoshang Date First Reported: August 2015
Yao, Ken Date First Reported: February 2017
Yimada, Hisayo Date First Reported: October 2014
Yin, Guan Date First Reported: April 2018
Yoshiro, Ken Date First Reported: September 2015
Yu, Lei Date First Reported: February 2023
Yuan, Zhang Date First Reported: September 2015
Zerhouni, Peter Date First Reported: September 2016
Zotova, Darya Date First Reported: September 2015
Zweers, Marcel Date First Reported: October 2017
