Asda, Berry Bros, JJ and Iceland impersonated by supply fraudsters

Iceland’s German egg producer was contacted by a Kevin Grant, who claimed to work for the retailer. He arranged for large quantities of eggs to be delivered to a self-storage warehouse in Enfield.

Grant had nothing to do with Iceland, and the egg producer never received payment. “Upon being alerted of this we contacted the Metropolitan Police Fraud Division and Local Police in Enfield with a view to staging a third delivery to try and catch the perpetrators, however, the local Police were called out to ‘a more serious incident’ so this staged delivery never happened. The Met Police informed us that the offence did not ‘score enough points’ on their fraud scale to warrant further investigation,” said company secretary Jayne Burrell.

“Since this initial incident Mr Grant and his aliases (Larry Thomson, Rebecca Williams, Jim Parker and Robert Smith) have placed orders with various companies in the EU for a variety of products including eggs, chocolate, olive oil, walnuts, pistachio nuts and garlic. Some of the orders look very convincing at first glance and some even included fake bank guarantees, the only real giveaways are bogus email addresses such as icelandfoods@europe.com and info.icefood@mail.com, mobile phone number as a contact number and also requests for delivery to be made to self-storage units in London and Peterborough.

“All Iceland suppliers have been notified of this activity and we are providing regular updates to the Business Crime Intelligence Bureau (BCIB). The BRC have also been informed and a message has been communicated by the BRC to its members,” she said.

JJ Food Service is facing £30,000 in legal fees to defend itself in France after fraudsters ordered goods in its name from French suppliers.

Four companies are suing it for more than 300,000 euros after goods including oils, olives and marinated vegetables were ordered by criminals posing as staff of JJ Food Service. JJ has received summonses to appear in court in four regions of the country, even though they are an innocent party in the scam.

Under French law, the supplier sues all parts of the supply chain, included hauliers without incurring legal fees of their own.

“It’s unbelievable that the French legal system requires us to defend ourselves in court even though we had no involvement with the ordering or movement of these goods. We have already spent thousands of pounds responded to these summonses, employing solicitors in France and protesting our innocence” said group general manager Terry Larkin.

“The goods were ordered from fake email accounts or from mobile phones, and we are surprised that the suppliers dispatched them without even the most basic of checks. We are confident that we will be cleared of any involvement, and we are hoping to get the case moved to British jurisdiction, so we can counter-claim for the time and money spent defending our reputation.”

Larkin said he knew of one million euros worth of orders which suppliers had been swindled out of using JJ’s name alone in the last year. He added that he has had no response to the information passed to Action Fraud. “I get the impression there’s just a database of information being stored.”

AG Parfett & Son
Steve Parfett, chairman of AG Parfett & Son, said the problem had got much worse in recent weeks, with Parfett’s name used by fraudsters on at least 12 occasions over the last three weeks.

“There have been so many attempts and the depressing thing is the police are just useless. They are absolutely uninterested and show no desires to catch people in the act. I find it incredibly frustrating because there’s a clear opportunity to deal with it,” he said. “I liken it to duty fraud - if they stamped on it in the early days we might not have ended up where we are now.”

Musgrave Group has issued a warning that it has no trading or commercial relationship with commodity brokers Dante International or AA Global Foods.

“If you have an agreement to supply goods to Musgrave, you must confirm this with your normal Musgrave contact with whom you have contracted in the past, or have a contract duly signed by the relevant Musgrave Company,” it said. Companies supplying it through an agent must ensure they have a signed agreement from Musgrave itself before it will accept and pay for those goods.

Brakes warned its suppliers that individuals calling themselves Peter Bros and Alan Jenkins, who claimed to be Brakes employees, had asked for large orders to be delivered to Access Storage in Edmonton.

“Please beware: This is not a Brakes property or consolidation delivery location and neither Peter Bros or Alan Jenkins or Brakes employees, or in any way connected with any member of the Brakes Group,” purchasing director Stuart Smith said. “Never send goods if the address to which you are asked to deliver to is different from one of our published depot locations or consolidation centres.”

The Spanish Civil Guard issued a warning to suppliers after olive oil and garlic suppliers were scammed by companies posing as three UK customers, Berry Bros, Rudd and Asda. One olive oil supplier received four email orders between May and August 2011 worth 150,000 euros. Three of the orders were sent out and the order was received by a supposed intermediary. The intermediary either met the delivery vehicle at the headquarters of the impersonated company, or called the driver at the last minute to change the delivery point. He even signed the delivery note.

In another operation, JJ Food Service’s name was used again to place a €35,000 order for garlic. The delivery point was changed at the last minute, with the JJ impersonators claiming their warehouse was full.

The Federation of Wholesale Distributors has reported more than 60 similar incidents in the last year, with European suppliers targeted by fraudsters impersonating British wholesalers and retailers.

“This is not just a problem for wholesalers. We believe there are other British companies facing similar legal action in France, and we need to demonstrate to the authorities on both sides of the Channel just how damaging this kind of fraud could be,” said chief executive James Bielby.