A 2.5t Volvo ECR25D mini digger belonging to Declan Redmond of Redmond Machinery & Motors was advertised for sale on a popular Irish classifieds site last month.

Fraudsters allegedly posed as representatives of a legitimate Northern Ireland construction company, using stolen business details and fake payment details, along with anonymous online communications to complete the scam.

The Volvo mini digger was then transported from Wexford across the border to a location near Newry.

Within two hours, both the machine and the suspected fraudster had disappeared.

Mr Redmond later discovered the bank transfer confirmation provided to him was fake.

Scam

Declan said: “At the time, everything appeared legitimate and professional. We believed that full payment had been made and the bank transfer confirmation gave us no reason to suspect the transaction was a scam until the machine had already disappeared.

"I hope that by speaking publicly about what happened, we can help prevent someone else from going through the same experience.”

The digger has now been registered as stolen with The Equipment Register (TER), Europe’s largest database of stolen plant and machinery.

Head of recoveries at TER Gareth Barkwill commented: “This fraud case demonstrates the evolving methods being used by organised criminals targeting the plant and farm machinery market.

"Fraudsters are becoming increasingly sophisticated in how they impersonate legitimate companies and create convincing proof of payment documentation.

"We have no doubt that the digger will resurface for sale, which is why it is essential for buyers to check any pre-owned machinery against our database to check it’s not stolen.

“We have posted an alert about this particular stolen Volvo digger on our social media page, which has already had more than 25,000 views in less than a week.

"More importantly, however, the excavator is now registered on our database. This means that it will be flagged up in the event that it is checked with us - either by a member of the public, a prospective buyer, an auction house, a port officer or a member of law enforcement - and will remain on our database until it is hopefully recovered.”