£270k scammed from North Ayrshire Council

North Ayrshire Council has fallen victim to a £270,000 scam when criminals falsely posing as a contractor used forged documents to instruct a change of bank details. North Ayrshire is not the first council to have fallen victim to this sting - South Lanarkshire fell victim to essentially the same type of scam earlier this year and lost around £102k followed shortly after by the retiral of the councils Executive Director of finance.

Strathclyde Police say a 44 yr old man has been arrested in the west midlands in connection with the North Ayrshire fraud.

North Ayrshire Council had been reviewing procedures for updating creditors' bank details after there had been nation-wide e-mail alerts about possible fraud. It was during this time in September that the fraud was discovered. North Ayrshire Council say they are confident of recovering at least £117,000 of the £270,000 which was fraudulently obtained and they have alerted other local authorities and local businesses to the methods used in the fraud.