• Home
  • About Us
    • Commercial Crime Services
    • International Maritime Bureau
    • IMB Piracy Reporting Centre
    • Counterfeiting Intelligence Bureau
    • Financial Investigation Bureau
    • FraudNet
  • Courses / Training
    • Internet Intelligence Course        
    • Annual IMB Trading Course
  • Membership
    • Membership of CCS
    • Membership of IMB            
    • Membership of CIB
    • Membership of FIB
    • NVOCC REGISTER
  • News
  • Contact Us
winteriscoming
  1. Maritime Piracy
  2. TalkFraud
  3. Membership
  4. Investigation
  5. Products & Services

The IMB aware of the escalating level of this criminal activity, wanted to provide a free service to the seafarer and established the 24 hour IMB Piracy Reporting Centre (PRC) in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Piracy Map
  • Piracy Map
  • Live Piracy Report
  • Piracy News
  • Request Piracy Report
  • Report & Incident
  • Voluntary Sponsors
  • Twitter

A newsletter about fraud and global asset recovery from the office of International Chamber of Commerce's FraudNet. To read about key asset recovery cases and global compliance with anti-fraud and money-laundering laws, please click in the link above for the Newsletter PDF.

Piracy Map
  • Conferences
  • Members
  • News
  • Publications

CCS offers a flexible membership arrangement based on the selection of predetermined membership packages. A prospective member can elect to join one or more Bureaux according to their requirements.

  • Membership to IMB
  • Membership to FIB
  • Membership to CIB
  • NVOCC REGISTER

Losses due to official misconduct account for a great many maritime trade incidents. Each incident can be complex and wide-ranging in nature. It is therefore unlikely that any one company will have the knowledge and resources to be able to investigate it thoroughly.

  • Case work
  • Due Diligence
  • Internet investigations
  • Litigation Support
  • Vessel reports
  • Trade Finance documents authentication

Counterfeiting and piracy are a drain on our businesses and on the global economy. It has resulted in the widespread loss of lawful employment and a massive reduction of tax revenues.

  • Confidential bulletin
  • Counterfeiting Confidential
  • Hologram Image Register
  • Commercial crime international
  • Chartering experience programme

IMB warns of suspect switched bills of lading scheme

  • Created
    Wednesday, 02 December 2015
  • Created by
    Nesrin Ercan
  • Last modified
    Wednesday, 02 December 2015
  • Revised by
    Nesrin Ercan
  • Voting
    Average rating
    • 1
    • 2
    • 3
    • 4
    • 5
  • Favourites
    1145 IMB warns of suspect switched bills of lading scheme /index.php/site_content/item/1145-imb-warns-of-suspect-switched-bills-of-lading-scheme
  • Categories
    News

28

The ICC International Maritime Bureau (IMB) has recently uncovered a new switched bills of lading tactic that it is warning its customer banks about.

  

  

28IMB warns of suspect switched bills of lading scheme

The new variation leverages a ‘special’ relationship the named notify party claims to have with its bank that allows it to present switched bills of lading (bs/l) in a way never seen before.

IMB said switched bs/l already present banks with risks that many still do not fully appreciate and this new ploy carries significantly increased risks.

It detected the case after closely examining a number of NVOCC bs/l that had been submitted to it by a member bank for checking.

The documents related to metal product shipments in containers from Europe to the Indian subcontinent.

Of particular concern was the large and unusual number of notify parties based in East Asia that were listed alongside the Middle East-based shipper with no apparent connection to the countries of origin or destination or the shipment.

 When contacted, the original European shipper of the goods was also concerned that NVOCC bs/l naming a large number of apparently unrelated parties were in circulation for their cargo, not least because the original BLs issued by the physical carrier had been sent to the customer’s bank in India on a documents against payment basis.

The Indian notify party named on the original b/l, claimed they  were able to operate in this way due to a ‘special’ arrangement with its banks it said had been in place for years.

However enquiries revealed that the companies named as notify parties on the NVOCC bs/l had only been set up in March this year.

The Indian company argued that there was nothing wrong with the way its business was conducted but the IMB points out there is a fine line between this type of practice and the possibility of outright abuse of the trade finance system.

It also notes that the NVOCC bs/l as presented to the banks are effectively worthless as collateral, as the b/l would not have entitled the bank to take delivery of the cargo it had paid out on should this have become necessary.

Significantly, after the member bank involved in this case withdrew its facility to this particular customer, the arrival of more bs/l from another IMB member bank naming the same NVOCC and notify parties indicated the customer was continuing to look for other banks to support this kind of transaction. The banks are often told that this is a legitimate switched b/l arrangement. Many of the banks approached have declined to finance such transactions.

MB advises caution until the customer can properly explain how the switched b/l arrangement actually works and that the NVOCC b/l is a valid document of the title to the cargo. Many customers use the term “switched b/l” loosely to describe highly suspect trading arrangements.

This case highlights the benefits of banks being able to share information about dubious transactions and the consequent need for a secure resource with input from different banks, through which to do so, as due diligence measures are often ineffective in isolation. The IMB provides this facility.

*This article was published in the November edition of CCI, a monthly free bulletin available only to IMB members. To find out more about IMB’s work and how it helps members detect potential trade fraud go to https://icc-ccs.org/icc/imb

JEM - Module-Basic

  • Pitfalls and Remed...
    Sun, 23. April 2023 - Fri, 28. April 2023

Contact

Contact

© Commercial Crime Services, a division of the ICC Company limited by guarantee registered in England No 05716642 Registered office Cinnabar Wharf, 26 Wapping High Street LONDON E1W 1NG Tel: +44 (0)20 7423 6960 E-mail us your comments and remarks

  • Site Map
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms & Conditions
  • Employee login