Dec 21 (NHK) - Japan Airlines says it has been defrauded of a total of 3.4 million dollars by sending money in response to emails calling for the payment of lease fees and other charges.
The airline says the company received an email purporting to be from an overseas business partner that asked for the payment of aircraft lease fees.
Officials in the finance section paid 3.2 million dollars into a bank account in Hong Kong as designated in the email.
The officials reportedly say the email explains that the partner has a new bank account.
They add they believed the email was a genuine one from the business partner as it had the name of one of the partner's officials as the sender and that the attached bill carries the signature of the official they have usually communicated with.
The company says its US office dealing with international cargos was also deceived by malicious emails and swindled of over 200,000 dollars in August and September.
The company says staff did not detect the fraud until receiving reminders urging payment.
It says the 3.2 million-dollar lease fees are unrecoverable as they have already been withdrawn.
Source: ANNnewsCH
