It has come to our attention that scam e-mails alleging to be from or on behalf of staff members of a UNESCO office in the UK are in circulation.

These scam e-mails are targeting international hotel and travel operators, by:

• requesting reservations and bookings in international locations 
• making payments through fraudulent international money orders

The scam is intended to encourage recipients to bank the money order. The sender then cancels all or part of the business arrangement, asking for refund of money to be put into a bank account, after which the original money order is cancelled, leaving the business operator seriously out of pocket.

The scam emails are usually sent from a Yahoo, Hotmail, AOL or Gmail e-mail address.

Please be advised that UNESCO does not have an office in the UK and that the UK National Commission for UNESCO is not an internal part of UNESCO.

Amongst others, the following names, email addresses and correspondence addresses are known to have been used, claiming to be staff members of a UNESCO office in the UK:

Michael Lieberman, Director of Finance, UNESCO
Christine Wade
Mrs. Sonia Williams
Amanda Green
Jessica Darling
Alice Ford
Ms Maureen Spencer, senior account UNESCO - London

christine_wade@hotmail.co.uk
amandagreen93@aol.co.uk
jessicadarling31@aol.co.uk

We have alerted the UK police and UNESCO Headquarters of the situation.

If you have received such an e-mail, or are in doubt as to the authenticity of any communication, please contact us at info (a) unesco.org.uk or call 020 7766 3491.