Alleged Diamond Scam Fails Despite Attempt to Steal Employee Identity

An attempt to scam a Ramat Gan-headquartered diamond firm has failed recently, raising concerns that others may fall victim to a similar attempt. The scam involved using a social media site to create a diamond trader persona, collecting information from other offices of the firm and sending fake internal emails to backup payment claims.

A couple of weeks ago, the Israeli firm was contacted via social media site LinkedIn by a person that presented himself as a diamond trader. On LinkedIn, the alleged scammer identifies himself as “David,” a diamantaire that is a member of several diamond related forums on the site.

After some negotiations, “David” agreed to buy two 3-carat diamonds from the firm, but asked to not make the payment in Israel. He also requested to ship the diamonds to a client in Turkey. The sides agreed that prior to delivery the buyer was to transfer the payment to the company’s bank account in Hong Kong.

In similar cases in the past, scammers would try to mislead a seller by sending a forged copy of a money wire. In this case, however, the alleged swindler went a step further. After sending an alleged copy of the wire transfer, the Hong Kong office was contacted by a person that identified himself as the CFO of the company. The company now suspects that the call was an attempt to collect information about people working in that office that handle financial matters.

The company in Israel then received an email, supposedly from an employee at the Hong Kong office, that confirmed the money transfer and authorized the shipment of the two diamonds. A check by the Israeli office found that the email was sent from outside of the company and money was never deposited in the company’s bank account.

The company did not ship the diamonds to the buyer who has since disappeared.

Authorities have been notified of the attempted scam as was the Israel Diamond Exchange, which is expected to pass a warning to all associate diamond bourses.