Jobseekers conned out of £1m

Jobseekers were fleeced of over £1million by Nigerian fraudsters who posted a fake job advert on Gumtree for the prestigious West London department store Harrods.

Nigerian conmen set up the scam with whiz kid Tyrone Ellis, aged 27, who designed the Trojan malware hidden inside ‘application packs’ that jobseekers downloaded. Once embedded in the jobseekers computer the malware copied bank logon and security details before passing to the gang, who then emptied their entire accounts, with some jobseekers losing up to £4,700.

The fraud was uncovered when job seekers complained to Harrods that their computers had become infected when they downloaded the job application form. At this point Harrods appointed US ‘phishing’ experts to investigate further, who quickly referred the case to Scotland Yard, who identified the gang by tracking unique IP addresses. The court case is currently on-going at the Old Bailey.

In the words of Hill Street Blues (for those of you old enough to remember) “Hey, let’s be safe out there”. Please remain vigilant whenever you’re online, whilst also ensuring that you have effective, up to date security software to protect against all types of malicious software (“malware”) as well as viruses.

For more information and advice please see our earlier blog ‘Jobseeker advice to protect security, both online and offline’.