Twenty-eight suspects have been apprehended in a fraud case which has costa Germany firm 10 million yuan (US$1.4 million), police said yesterday.

Police in the Pudong New Area started their investigation when the general manager of the company’s Shanghai office contacted them on June 24.

The manager, surnamed Liu, said he received an e-mail from someone he believed was the CEO of the company in Germany. The e-mail asked him to arrange payment from the company’s account for a “confidential acquisition project.”

Later, a person claiming to be a British lawyer called Liu and asked him to transfer 10 million yuan to a bank account in Hong Kong. When the money transfer failed, Liu was given a bank account on the Chinese mainland, into which he transferred the requested funds on June 22.

When Liu was told to pay an additional 26.52 million yuan into another bank account, he became suspicious. He checked with the firm’s headquarters in Germany and was told that there was no such project.

After receiving the report, police froze 7.31 million yuan in 186 bank accounts related to the fraud. The suspects were caught earlier this month.