Local company loses $500,000 to an online scam

A local company has lost more than $500,000 after transferring money to an account and later finding out the email did not belong to the company they had made arrangements with.

The Cyber Crime Unit is warning members of the public of this scam known as Business Email Compromise that target people relying on email to order goods from overseas.

Police say after several genuine emails with the real company, the hacker would have registered a domain similar to an official one and hope that a targeted user will not notice the difference.

They are urging everyone to thoroughly check email addresses before making a transfer for payments.