subject: Highly elaborate fraud scheme: Okuma Group [print this page] Highly elaborate fraud scheme: Okuma Group
For several days now, random people in German speaking countries (D-A-CH) are getting cold phone calls from women claiming to work for a japan based equity management organization called the "Okuma Group".
A German blogger who was amongst the callees dug in deeper and found a thoroughly prepared disguise, detailed action plans and a level of effort yet unknown for simple scam or fraud operations.
The pretend-to-be equity management organization not only has an impressive web site, they also send high quality personalized documents to their potential customers. Their telephone agents are extremely well trained, they talk fluent English in facts talk as well as smalltalk and cannot be irritated by unexpected questions. Although it seems risky to address German speaking people in English, the plan seems to work out nevertheless.
If convinced by the charming female operators, the fraud victims are offered to buy shares of existing companies at an amazingly low price which results from good relations between the alleged "Okuma Group" and the company's CEO. Payment however has to be processed through a clearing agent who is usually located in more remote locations like Cyprus.
The investigative blogger has found evidence that - if the money has been transferred to the fraudsters - there is no way to either sell the stock or get the money back in any other way.
One more thing is very interesting about the fraudsters strategy. To create even more credibility for their fake "equity management organization", they use platforms like this one (in fact, they actually used this one as well) to post (fake, of course) press releases pretending to originate from the Okuma Group's experts.
