Online scammers who claimed to be buyers for Harrods have conned 32 tonnes of Swiss cheese worth more than GBP 400,000 from a dairy company in Switzerland.
The unknown crooks even managed to get the cheese delivered to a warehouse in the UK using fake emails to get a total of 32.7 tonnes (72,091 lbs) of Gruyere and Emmental from Cremo SA, Switzerland’s second-largest dairy.
The shipment, however, was never paid for, and facing losses of more than CHF 450,000 (GBP 403,386) company officials recently reported the case to the Fribourg Prosecutor’s Office.
Reports revealed that the scammers, who local media said were from the UK, first made contact with the milk processing company from the municipality of Villars-sur-Glane, Canton of Fribourg, in 2019.
They reportedly presented themselves as Harrods and Iceland Foods representatives, looking to find a Gruyere and an Emmental cheese supplier for the UK market.
But after Cremo officials delivered the goods to a warehouse in the UK, the two alleged store representatives vanished without a trace, and took the cheese with them.
Swiss media suspected that the crooks then sold the cheese illegally to British grocery stores.
Meanwhile, Cremo suffered a loss of CHF 451,358 (GBP 405,223) or a total of 14.5 per cent of its annual losses for 2019.
Court clerk and spokesperson for the Fribourg Public Prosecutor’s Office Murielle Decurtins confirmed the case on Wednesday, 3rd May.
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Story By: Georgina Jadikovska, Sub-Editor: Marija Stojkoska, Agency: Newsflash
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