Fraudsters revive two-year-old Brics funding scam under De Lille’s name

A  two-year-old Brics bank funding scam using Patricia De Lille’s name seems to have been revived, prompting the politician to take to Twitter to denounce the claims made in the message.

There is a fake Patricia de Lille account sending fraudulent messages to people regarding a BRICS bank funding opportunity for their small businesses. Please be alert & note that this is not from me. Ignore any messages if you receive a communication of this nature.

— Patricia de Lille (@PatriciaDeLille) December 19, 2018

According to a statement drafted and published in March 2016 by De Lille, five separate messages had been reported to her office emanating from the e-mail address patriciadelille@consultant.com, accompanied by the subject line ‘BRICS Bank funding’.

“Please note that this e-mail address does not belong to me. It would appear that a fake Facebook profile is being used to solicit contact details. Once the e-mail address is received, an e-mail is sent to said address asking whether the recipient would be able to use grant funds worth £450 000 (R9 739 448) from the BRICS bank to ‘explore job opportunities for our citizens’. Once they agree, they are added to a beneficiary list and asked to pay £250 (R5 415) in order to obtain a BRICS non-residential beneficiary form,” read the statement.

She lodged a case back in 2016 and was in the process of collecting e-mails from others who had been contacted by the fraudulent account in order to build a case.

There have not yet been any new complaints published on social media in reference to the scam.

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