BREMERTON — There have been at least three local cases in the past three weeks involving attempted scams against area businesses involving fraudulent wire transfers. Bremerton Police is investigating two of these cases; a third occurred elsewhere in the county.

“This appears to be related to ongoing scams where hackers get internal information from companies, and now they are trying to use the information to fraudulently receive funds through wire transfers,” said Bremerton Police Chief Steve Strachan.

The FBI also issued a scam warning on Aug. 27 related to this type of scam.

In all three cases, a person with financial authority at the company receives an email, which is apparently from the CEO or the head of the business. The email is written informally and requests an immediate wire transfer for a business purpose. The name of the employee, the familiarity of the emails themselves, and the names used, leads the employee to believe the email came directly from the business executive.

In these cases, there is also a sense of urgency and the e-mail writer becomes annoyed if the employee asks for more information. In all three cases, the employee later found the executive never made the contact or made the request. All three cases are under investigation, and two resulted in losses of thousands of dollars.

Two of the three requested funds to be wired to locations in the U.S.; the third was to Taiwan.

The police department warns business owners to be aware of these tactics and to take extra precautions to prevent becoming a victim.

“Business owners should be aware that there are people out there trying to impersonate chief executives and demand “urgent” wire transfers. Being aware and taking precautions is the best way to fight back and not be a victim,” Strachan said.