Scammers Impersonate the DFSA’s Chief Executive and Barclays Bank PLC UAE, in an Advance Fee Scam
The DFSA alerts the financial services community and the public to an Advance Fee Scam in which:
- the DFSA’s Chief Executive; and
- the name of Barclays Bank PLC UAE (Barclays), and one of its employees,
are fraudulently impersonated.
The way in which the scam works is that the scammers send e-mails to apparent customers of Barclays asking them to pay an Advance Fee of between USD 2,000 to USD 5,000. In turn, the scammers promise to send USD 10,000,000 to the customers foreign bank account once the Advance Fee is paid. Of course, the scammers have no intention of fulfilling their promise.
The DFSA has seen communications in which the scammers attempt to bully customers into making the Advance Fee payment by threatening not to send the promised funds to the customers.
As part of this scam, the scammers fraudulently misuse the name of the DFSA and its Chief Executive. They also fraudulently misuse the name of Barclays and an employee of Barclays. In some fraudulent communications, the scammers falsely claim that:
- the Chief Executive of the DFSA has instructed that all unclaimed funds (including the customers’ fictitious USD 10,000,000) are to be directed into the “Arab Emirates Government Treasury Account” as “unserviceable funds”; and
- the above instruction is in compliance with “Section 3(1) of the United Arab Emirates Financial Law enacted in 2001”.
In other fraudulent communications, the scammers falsely claim that the Chief Executive of the DFSA:
- requires the customer to pay the fee in order for the USD 10,000,000 to be released; and
- says that, if the fee is not paid, the DFSA will cancel the payment of the USD 10,000,000.
The DFSA informs you that it:
- does not have any role in authorising the transfer of funds to customers of a bank, or directing the transfer of customers’ funds to any other party;
- is not aware of any account called the “United Arab Emirates Law” enacted in 2001 or otherwise.
Barclays Bank has confirmed to the DFSA that:
- it did not send or authorise the sending of any communication which refers to the release of USD 10,000,000, if a fee of between USD 2,000 to USD 5,000 is paid.
