by By Giorgos Lampiris
In a particular but equally damaging situation is the rice production and packaging company, Euricom, based in northern Greece. This is yet another incident of electronic data breach in a company in northern Greece, because remember that in 2022 hackers invaded the systems of Masoutis – S. Tortopidis, former director of digital transformation of the chain, was reported in this regard – , however, without the company suffering financial damage as happened with Euricom. However, in the case of Euricom, the company also suffered a significant financial loss that reached 220,287 euros, an amount that was also recorded in its accounting books as a loss, as evidenced by its financial statements for the year 2022. .
For this specific incident, the company relied extensively on the annual financial statements for the last fiscal year. As he points out, last year he bought a quantity of rice from the Spanish company Arcesa Arroces Cereales SAU, which is The Spanish company is a subsidiary of the Italian group Euricom, which also owns a large part of the shares of Eurimac, a pasta production company, also based in northern Greece and known under the “MAKVEL” brand, in which the Konstantinidis family also participates.
How the money was lost
In the case of the fraud that Euricom suffered, the company received emails from the Spanish company listing the bank accounts. The particular emails urged him to deposit the money to pay for the amount of rice purchased, which he did. Euricom, for its part, made transfers in the form of remittances of sums 45,231.05 on 08/07/2022, 50,000.00 euros and 29,476.60 euros on 07/19/2022, 48,310.80 euros on 07/26 /2022 and 47,269.40 euros on 08/05/2022. In addition, on 08/22/2022, the company made two other payments which were not executed because its managers were informed by the bank it works with that the account had been blocked. In a telephone conversation that Euricom Hellas had with the financial director of the Spanish company, it was established that the money had never been collected and that hackers had invaded the electronic communication. The two companies Euricom Hellas and Arcesa have filed a complaint about the incident with the Greek and Spanish authorities, seeking to find the perpetrators.
Who is Euricom Hellas?
The company has been active in Greece for more than 20 years, while its daily production capacity, according to its website, amounts to 500 tonnes. It started its commercial activity by exporting all of its production. In recent years, it has invested in the standardization of rice products and more specifically in the design and production of private label products, thanks to which it also holds a significant share of the Greek market. She recently created her own brand of rice products under the trade name “Euptopia”.
It has a strong presence abroad, while in 2022 it expanded its business to the Middle East and especially to countries like Jordan and Lebanon. In addition, he has expanded his collaborations in Northern Europe and the Netherlands, Sweden as well as Hamburg, Germany.
The company in the first quarter of 2023 further increased its turnover compared to the corresponding period of 2022, at a percentage of 24%, while it believes that this year will develop on a positive basis, compared to the corresponding previous year. We report that over the whole of the 2022 financial year, Euricom increased its turnover by 81%, reaching 31.64 million euros compared to the 2021 financial year. amounted to 909.27 thousand euros. In the previous year, equity increased to €5.76 million from €4.85 million in 2021.
In the area of facilities, the company leases, under the long-term lease model, land belonging to the first agricultural cooperative of Chalastra, where, in addition to the facilities of the cooperative, there are also warehouses, which Euricom has built to serve his needs.
Invasion recently also in the largest fish farm in Greece
We will remind you that hackers recently broke into the servers of the largest fish farming company in Greece, Avramar. The company hastened to send an internal note to inform all of its staff. The company has been asked to address the issue and in a communicative manner, advising reporters who called about the incident, that the exposure suffered was limited and that the full range of its operations continues unimpeded.
