Hundreds of thousands of pounds have been stolen from Highland Hospice after the charity was targeted by “despicable” cyber-criminals.
Hospice staff have been left “shocked and devastated” by the fraud, which was branded “utterly disgraceful” and “especially abhorrent” last night.
Police revealed this week that a handful of north businesses had been conned out of almost £2.5million in less than two weeks at the end of last month.
And last night the force disclosed that the region’s hospice was one of the victims, losing a “mid six-figure sum” to the criminals, who call up unannounced pretending to work for an organisation’s bank.
Some of the money taken from the hospice has been recovered and detectives are working to trace the rest.
Highland Hospice chairman Forbes Duthie said: “Staff at the hospice have been shocked and devastated by this despicable and sophisticated cyber crime.
“The stolen funds had been raised through the generosity and significant efforts of Hospice fundraisers and supporters to help us care for our patients and support their families which makes the crime especially abhorrent.”
A major fundraising effort helped the hospice open a revamped £7.5million inpatient facility on the banks of the River Ness last October, and the charity relies on the generosity of donors to continue providing end-of-life care.
Hospice chief executive officer Kenny Steele said: “Although this is a horrendous situation it will not have an immediate impact on operations.
“There is resilience built into the hospice financial systems to cope with these types of risk to ensure that our top priority of patient and family care and wellbeing is protected.
“We have put in additional security measures and we are working with the police and banking authorities to work on recovery of the funds and track the perpetrators.
“We also hope that releasing this information will help protect other businesses in the area.”
The criminals use advanced technology for their “vishing” raids to “spoof” phone numbers so they appear to be genuinely calling from a bank.
They can tell their targets that their account has been compromised and persuade victims to transfer money to a “safe account”.
Detective Inspector Iain McPhail, from the economic crime and financial investigation unit, said: “Any activity of this nature is unacceptable but to defraud money from a charity with the primary purpose of providing palliative care is utterly disgraceful.
“We are carrying out a thorough investigation into this incident and other businesses involved.”
