Normandy Judo League Avoids €68,000 Fraud After Quick Bank Intervention

The Ligue de Normandie de judo narrowly avoided a large financial loss after a staff member was targeted in a sophisticated fraud attempt.

On Thursday, November 5, the organization’s accounting department received a phone call from an individual posing as a business partner requesting an urgent payment of €68,000.

The caller attempted to establish legitimacy by citing the name of an employee’s colleague and claiming the Ligue’s president, Jean Mesnildrey, would personally authorize the transfer. Shortly after the call, the staff member received an email appearing to be signed by Mesnildrey, which instructed the immediate processing of the funds.

“She was contacted by phone by a person who presented themselves as being responsible for a company and requesting the payment of a deposit of 68,000 euros,” Mesnildrey said. “She received an email, effectively, which was signed with my name and which asked to validate the payment. So, I think the colleague was a little under pressure, a little taken off guard. She reacted by making the three transfers quite quickly.”

The employee grew suspicious shortly after initiating the transactions and immediately alerted the organization’s leadership. According to Mesnildrey, the staff successfully contacted their bank to intervene before the funds were permanently moved out of reach.

“The reaction was relatively simple, call the bank immediately to try to block these transfers,” Mesnildrey explained. “We were able to recover the amount that had been unjustly sent in the afternoon. But it came down to a matter of minutes.”

Captain Olivier Bréban, second-in-command of the Caen departmental gendarmerie, noted that this type of scheme relies on creating a sense of urgency to bypass standard verification procedures. He stated that these tactics are frequently directed at small and medium-sized enterprises where limited staffing makes it difficult to implement dual-verification protocols for large transactions.

“It is clearly first of all a manipulation, especially the company’s accounting department, to proceed with rapid transfers in an emergency,” Bréban said. “In fact, there are permanent reminders, there is pressure. They attack more businesses, and rather small and medium-sized enterprises, not necessarily large groups.”

To prevent such scams, the gendarmerie recommends that organizations require dual-validation for any large financial transfer. Captain Bréban emphasized that staff should never feel pressured to bypass internal controls, regardless of the perceived seniority of the request.

“You must put in place, I think, a double validation of transfers when it is a fairly large sum to be defined by the head of the company,” Bréban stated. “You should never work in an emergency. And at any time, it is the same, the financial or banking department, the accounting department of the company must not modify a RIB following an unverified call or email.”

The Ligue de Normandie de judo has filed a formal complaint regarding the incident. Authorities noted that investigating these crimes remains difficult, as the perpetrators are often based outside of the country.