Nigeria, April 15 -- The INTERPOL says it has foiled a coordinated multinational face masks supply fraud worth Eur 1.5 million linked to Nigeria.

The International Criminal Police Organisation in a statement on its website on Tuesday said the scheme involved the use of compromised emails, advance payment fraud, and money laundering.

The alleged fraudsters use the global scarcity of medical supplies following the coronavirus pandemic to dupe their victims. According to INTERPOL the suspects used a compromised email address linked to a legitimate company in Spain selling face masks and a fake website.

The company originally claimed to have 10 million masks but could not deliver them. It later referred the buyer to a dealer in Ireland. Th...