Our little twitter-sphere has been all a-tweet in the past couple of days about some rumours swirling around one of the country’s most established distributors, Corex. Seems some important announcements from the company could be forthcoming in the next few weeks.
Regular readers of Deep Throat will remember that Mark Lu, founder of the company back in the 1990s, sold it to Partner Technology Corporation – a subsidiary of the $20-billion Qisda Group based in Taiwan – back in 2018. At the time of the sale, Lu was contracted into a five-year management agreement between the parties and this, with its looming expiry date, could be the main reason for all the twittering.
Delving just a little deeper, however, Deep Throat has also discovered that incumbent MD for the past couple of years – Michael Han – has stepped aside. According to reliable sources, Taiwan-based Michael Chi has been earmarked by the holding company to head up Corex in the near future.
It had been speculated by certain pundits on the news that Han had stepped down that the former MD of Corex, Steward Diss – who relocated a few years back to Dubai within the Partner Technology family – would return to his previous role. But we’ve again reliably learned that Diss has since moved onwards and upwards in the tech world, and is now a vice-president at Sumni in the US.
As always, Dear Reader, Deep Throat will keep you updated with more details as we unearth them …
Fraudsters targeting distributors!
Seems there’s no end to the schemes that South African criminals will come up with to avoid doing an honest day’s graft! We’ve always said that, if the country could harness the ingenuity of its criminals and put it into legitimate channels, no other nation on earth would be able to compete with us!
When they hit a dead-end with one scam, today’s fraudsters are speedily on to the next one – and it doesn’t have to be “top-of-the-range” cybercrime; they’ll plough the depths until they come across something as old and trusted as biltong and melktert.
The latest victim is one of the country’s oldest and most respected distributors, Tarsus Distribution, which has been forced to send out the following letter to all its partners:
We are writing to inform you about a serious issue that has recently come to our attention: individuals and groups impersonating Tarsus Distribution and using fraudulent bank accounts.
We have noticed that these imposters are attempting to deceive our partners and clients by presenting themselves as representatives of Tarsus Distribution. They use fake bank accounts to collect payments and conduct transactions under our name. This fraudulent activity poses a significant threat to our collective business operations and the trust we have established over the years.
To safeguard against these fraudulent actions, we urge you to take the following precautions:
Verification of bank account details:
Before making any payments, please verify the bank account details through official communication channels. Only rely on account information received through email or phone calls after cross-checking with your established contacts at Tarsus Distribution. Further, make use of the bank’s online verification service to confirm banking details. This will protect you from fraud by using the verifying services to check that the account details match that of the business you want to pay.
Direct communication:
Always confirm any payment instructions or bank account details changes directly with your known contacts at Tarsus. If you receive any suspicious communication, please contact us immediately through the official phone number or email address provided at the end of this letter.
Please proceed to block the following email address: tarsus_distribution@protonmail.com. It has come to our attention that impersonators are using this as a direct communication tool.
Awareness and vigilance:
Educate your finance and operations teams about the potential threat of fraud and the importance of verifying account details. Please encourage them to report any suspicious activity without delay.
Document authentication:
Be cautious of any documents that seem unusual or inconsistent with our standard communication. Verify their authenticity with your known contacts at Tarsus. Our confirmed bank account details are available on our statements and other official emails sent via tarsus.co.za domain email accounts.
It’s not often that Deep Throat will carry an almost complete letter from a distributor to its partners, but in this case, we think it’s justified. For the simple reason that any criminal syndicate can, and undoubtedly will, replace the “Tarsus Distribution” with the name of another familiar, trusted distributor. The fraudsters out there – and there are a multitude of them – aren’t going to care about a name … and now that they’ve latched on to the distribution channel, there is little doubt that other targets have already been identified.
Be cautious! Be aware! And be alert!