The port of Rotterdam has seen, in recent years, increasingly sophisticated attempts by fraudsters to scam millions of dollars out of traders by paper fraud, offering non-existent oil storage at one of the world’s biggest oil hubs.
The frauds, using fake documents and fraudulent websites, lure traders to pay for oil storage that simply doesn’t exist at the Port of Rotterdam. The scams have been running for about 15 years, the Port of Rotterdam Authority has estimated, and has created a special task force to fight them.
Scammers are selling non-existent inventories or non-existent storage capacity by exploiting the complexity of international oil trading and tank-storage logistics.
Fraudsters are creating fake websites, emails, and other forms of digital contact based on trust and forged documents.
That’s becoming so easy in the Internet era, with the availability of so many AI tools that unsuspecting traders could easily fall into the trap.
Much of the information about legitimate oil storage and trading companies is publicly available via websites, chambers of commerce, Google Maps, logos, and whatnot. This makes content easy to copy into fake websites impersonating legitimate companies, significantly increasing the number of fraudulent websites that are very similar and difficult to distinguish from the legitimate ones. Related: India Flags Second Tanker Incident Off Oman Within 24 Hours
The task force involving the Port of Rotterdam and other authorities is actively committed to identifying these websites, blacklisting them, and having them taken offline.
Because oil traders are getting burnt. One of these is British oil trader Atif Aslam, who has discovered that documents relating to oil supposedly stored in Rotterdam had been forged, Dutch outlet NOS reports.
The oil involved in Aslam’s trade did not exist, nor did the storage facility at the Port of Rotterdam, for which he had already paid. Aslam lost nearly $1.5 million in the deal.
The paper frauds with forged documents and fraudulent websites are estimated to cost traders at least $11.5 million (10 million euros) every year, and this is only for known and reported instances of these scams.
The frauds are attempting to swindle traders out of billions of U.S. dollars. Last year, deals with a total offered value of $2.9 billion (2.5 billion euros) were reported to the task force, the Port of Rotterdam Authority said earlier this year.
In February, the port authority and VOTOB, the Association of Dutch Tank Storage Companies, expanded the task force aimed at combating the fraud scheme known as storage spoofing.
Storage spoofing, or tank storage spoofing, is the collective term coined and used in Rotterdam for all forms of selling non-existent storage capacity and inventories of raw materials and products at terminals, particularly in the port of Rotterdam area.
This is a form of Internet fraud, in which scammers offer goods via fake websites that impersonate well-known tank storage companies.
“Victims include, on the one hand, international traders who are misled and lose substantial sums of money to non-existent deals, and on the other hand legitimate companies in the port area whose names and data are misused,” the Port of Rotterdam Authority says.
There have even been cases in which tank trucks arrive at terminals in Rotterdam to collect oil products that simply do not exist.
The authorities are combating increasingly sophisticated scams because AI tools allow the creation of convincingly realistic websites or the cloning of a well-known trading company's website.
The frauds are damaging the reputation of legitimate oil trading firms and storage companies and their websites, as they are being impersonated by fraudsters. That’s why the task force includes the associations of Dutch tank storage companies VOTOB and the commodity traders’ association, The Commodity Traders (TCT), as well as the Seaport Police District, including the Digital Expertise team.
“Several of our members have been dealing with this for years,” Willem-Henk Streekstra, Director of VOTOB, said, commenting on the collaboration with the Port of Rotterdam Authority to combat the fraud.
“With this cooperation, we are providing professional support to reduce storage spoofing,” Streekstra added.
“Together we can do more than each of us individually. It remains extremely frustrating when your company name is misused and people lose large amounts of money.”
The scams running for a decade and a half, and the increasingly sophisticated forgeries of documents, papers, and websites, have prompted the authorities, tank companies, and traders’ associations to launch an awareness platform at www.storagespoofing.nl.
Storagespoofing.nl is a collaboration between the Port of Rotterdam Authority, VOTOB, TCT, and the Seaport Police.
“Storage spoofing is a form of digitalised crime that affects the economy and the integrity of ports, as well as the people who work there,” says Marijn van Schoote, Director of Ferm Seaports.
“It is therefore positive that this new cooperation ensures continued attention to combating this type of fraud,” van Schoote adds.
“We are very pleased that the Port of Rotterdam Authority and VOTOB recognise this urgency.”
