Payments guide

How to pay an overseas aircraft parts supplier safely

By the MG AVIATION TECH team · Published · 10 min read

A parts purchase often ends with an international wire to a company you have only met by email, sometimes under AOG pressure. That is exactly the payment fraudsters aim for. This guide covers changed bank details, lookalike domains, prepaying an unknown broker, sanctions screening of the payee, a pre-wire checklist, and the first hours after a wire went to the wrong account.

Why parts payments are a target

The FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) defines business email compromise (BEC) as a scam “targeting businesses or individuals working with suppliers and/or businesses regularly performing wire transfer payments.” In its 2025 annual report, IC3 recorded 24,768 BEC complaints with reported losses of $3,046,598,558 — up from $2,770,151,146 in 2024. In IC3's breakdown of how BEC victims reported losing money, wire transfer and ACH make up 86%.

FinCEN, the US Treasury's financial intelligence unit, found in its 2019 advisory on email compromise that fraudulent vendor and client invoices “are generally affiliated with larger BEC transaction amounts than even the CEO fraud scheme,” and that such schemes exploit “the common use of foreign vendors.”

The parts trade fits: suppliers in many countries, business by email, prepayment by wire. An FBI special agent quoted by NBAA said the same of aircraft sales: they are “often international, typically involve large sums of money and frequently occur on short notice.” An AOG order adds the pressure a fraudster wants.

“Our bank details have changed”

The classic version arrives in a real thread. Either the supplier's mailbox has been compromised, or someone has registered a domain close to the supplier's and is copying the conversation. The quote and the proforma look right, because they are the real ones — only the bank account at the bottom is new. The usual excuse: an audit, a new bank, a tax issue.

FinCEN's 2016 email compromise advisory lists the red flags banks look for. Most apply equally to a buyer's accounts payable desk:

Red flagHow it shows up in a parts dealWhat to do
A known payee, but different account details than beforeA regular supplier's invoice now names a different bank, account or countryStop; verify by call-back before paying anything
Slightly altered email addressA hyphen swapped for an underscore, a changed domain endingCheck the full address, not the display name
“Urgent”, “secret” or “confidential”, little time to confirm“Release today or we lose the unit”, sent just before a cut-offTreat urgency as a reason to verify, not to skip it
Beneficiary is not the account holder of recordThe invoice names one company, the account belongs to anotherGet an explanation you can verify independently, or refuse
A request for more payments right after a first payment to a new account“We received it; please also pay the second invoice here”Verify the first payment with the supplier on a known number

Call back to a number you already had

IC3's advice is to “use secondary channels and/or two-factor authentication to verify requests for changes in account information.” In practice that means a telephone call-back, and the details decide whether it works:

  • Use a number from your own records — your vendor file, an earlier contract, the supplier's website that you typed in yourself. Never the number in the email, its signature or the new invoice: those lead to the fraudster.
  • Speak to someone you already know at the supplier, or to their finance department reached through the main number.
  • Let them read the details to you — beneficiary name, bank, account number or IBAN, SWIFT/BIC — rather than asking “is this right?”
  • Have a second person approve any change to stored bank details, and record who called whom, when, and on which number.
  • Verify the first payment to any new account too, not only changes. A new supplier's first invoice is a “changed details” event with no history to compare against.

A bank letter “confirming” the new account proves nothing: it arrives through the same channel and is as easy to fake as the invoice.

Lookalike domains and spoofed senders

FinCEN's examples of altered addresses include hyphens changed to underscores and modified domain names. Other common tricks: rn in place of m, a doubled or missing letter, .co or .net in place of .com, or the supplier's name in the display name over a free-mail address. IC3 recommends checking the sender's address, “especially when using a mobile or handheld device,” where only the display name may be visible, and setting computers to show full email extensions.

Reply to payment emails from an address in your own contacts, not with the reply button, and check the reply-to address. A mismatch is a reason to call.

When the name on the account does not match

Many buyers assume the bank will stop a wire whose beneficiary name does not match the account. Do not rely on it. Under the US Uniform Commercial Code, section 4A-207, if a beneficiary's bank “does not know that the name and number refer to different persons, it may rely on the number as the proper identification.” In the euro area, the Instant Payments Regulation has required banks to offer a verification of payee check — name against IBAN — on euro credit transfers since 9 October 2025. A cross-border wire in US dollars to an Asian or Middle Eastern bank is a different payment, and you should not assume any such check happens.

So compare the names yourself. The company on the quote, on the invoice and on the bank account should be the same legal entity. “Our payment agent”, “our parent company” or “an account abroad for tax reasons” may be genuine, but each is also a known fraud and sanctions pattern: verify it independently, and ask why the seller cannot be paid directly.

Prepaying an unknown broker, and the alternatives

Paying in full by wire before shipment is common in the parts trade, and with a new supplier it puts all of the risk on you. The US International Trade Administration puts it plainly: “Foreign buyers are also concerned that the goods may not be sent if payment is made in advance.” A wire, once received, is hard to get back. The options, roughly from most to least buyer risk:

MethodWho carries the riskFits whenWatch out for
Full prepayment by wireBuyerEstablished supplier; small amount; AOG with no alternativeVerify the account every time; one wire is one chance
Partial payment: deposit, balance on shipment or on documentsSharedNew supplier, higher valueAgree in writing what triggers the balance: copies of the release certificate and trace, tracking, photos
EscrowHeld by a third partyOne-off deal with an unknown sellerChoose the escrow service yourself and check its license; fake escrow sites are a known scam
Documentary collectionShared; seller keeps control of documentsEstablished trade, larger shipments“No verification process and limited recourse in the event of non-payment”
Letter of creditA bank commits to pay against specified documentsHigh-value orders, new relationships“Labor-intensive and relatively expensive due to bank fees”; banks check documents, not the part
Open account (credit terms)SellerLong relationship, approved creditThe seller has to be willing to extend credit to you

On escrow, the FTC described a legitimate service as an independent third party that holds the payment “until the consumers have had the opportunity to receive and inspect the merchandise” — and pursued a fake one run by the fraudsters themselves. A seller insisting on an escrow company you have never heard of is a warning.

A letter of credit protects the payment, not the airworthiness. It pays against the documents it lists, so list the ones you need: the release certificate type, a trace, and the part and serial numbers. The documents themselves still need the checks in our guide to verifying a supplier and its documents — a forged 8130-3 can be presented under a letter of credit as easily as it can be attached to an email.

With any method, a small first order is a cheap test of a new supplier.

Screen the payee, not only the part

Before paying a new supplier, search its name, and the name on the bank account if it differs, in OFAC's free Sanctions List Search, which covers the Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) list and OFAC's non-SDN lists, or in the Consolidated Screening List, which adds the Commerce and State lists. Paying a listed party is a sanctions problem as well as a fraud problem: if a US bank in the chain has to block the transfer, OFAC's rules require the funds to go into a blocked, interest-bearing account “from which only OFAC-authorized debits may be made” (OFAC FAQ 32). The money is then out of your hands.

Aviation is a current focus. On 8 September 2026 OFAC sanctioned 36 targets supporting Iran's aviation sector, including companies and individuals in the UAE, Türkiye, Malaysia, Kazakhstan and the UK. Treasury says Iran uses “front companies and other pass-through entities.” The same day FinCEN issued FIN-2026-Alert006, whose red flags for banks include:

  • A recently incorporated technology, aviation or logistics company with an opaque ownership structure and a limited online presence, in a jurisdiction at high risk for transshipment to Iran, buying large numbers of aircraft parts.
  • Such a company using a residential address, or sharing an address or PO box with similar companies set up around the same time.
  • A general trading company in a free trade zone, which does not ordinarily deal in aviation goods, ordering US- or Western-origin aircraft parts.
  • Claims of OFAC or BIS authorization without copies of the authorization.

These flags describe buyers, but a broker that asks to be paid through a third-country account can belong to such a network too. Our export control guide covers the rules in more detail.

Checklist before you wire

Before the first payment to a new supplier

  1. Confirm the company exists: registered name, physical address, people you can reach through an independent channel.
  2. Screen the company and the account holder's name against OFAC's list or the Consolidated Screening List.
  3. Check that the company on the quote, the invoice and the bank account is the same legal entity, and that the bank's country makes sense for it.
  4. Call back on a number you found yourself and have them read the bank details to you.
  5. For a large or unusual order, choose a payment method that does not put the whole amount at risk before shipment: deposit and balance, escrow you selected, or a letter of credit.
  6. Agree in writing which documents come with each line.

Before any payment to changed details

  1. Hold the payment until the change is verified; check the sender's full and reply-to addresses.
  2. Call a known contact on a number from your own records — never one from the request.
  3. Ask why the account changed, and whether the beneficiary is still the same legal entity.
  4. Screen the new account holder's name if it differs from the supplier's.
  5. Record the verification: who, when, which number; a second person approves the change.
  6. After paying, confirm receipt with the supplier through the same known channel.

If you wired money to a fraudster: the first hours

Speed matters more than anything else. In IC3's words, “if you discover a fraudulent transfer, time is of the essence.”

  1. Call your bank immediately and ask for a recall of the funds. IC3 advises requesting the recall “along with any necessary indemnification documents” — the hold harmless letter some banks require. Give the amount, date, beneficiary bank, SWIFT/BIC and account.
  2. File a complaint at ic3.gov, regardless of the amount, with full transaction details. IC3 takes complaints from abroad as well: it received them from more than 200 countries in 2025.
  3. Tell the real supplier through a known channel; its mailbox may be the one compromised.
  4. Report in your own country as well, to the police.
  5. Secure your own email: change passwords, turn on two-factor authentication, and check for forwarding rules you did not create.
  6. Keep the evidence: emails with full headers, invoices, payment confirmations.

Recovery is possible, not assured. In 2025 IC3's Recovery Asset Team handled 3,900 incidents through its Financial Fraud Kill Chain, involving $1,163,919,846 in attempted theft; $679,013,183 was frozen, a 58% success rate. FinCEN reported in 2019 that its Rapid Response Program had greater success when victims or their banks reported the transfer to law enforcement within 24 hours.

Where RFQ Radar fits

If you buy from MG AVIATION TECH through our client portal, RFQ Radar, our invoices appear in the portal, marked as due or received. Several invoices can be combined into a group invoice and paid in one transfer, which means fewer wires to set up. The checks in this guide still apply to every supplier you pay, us included.

Fewer wires, one place for invoices

Send your RFQ to [email protected] in your own file, as it is — Excel, PDF, a scan or the email body. Your inquiry will be reviewed by a specialist within one business day. Prices are Ex Works our warehouse in Orlando, FL, and in RFQ Radar you see our invoices as due or received, with the option of a group invoice paid in one transfer.

Send your RFQ →

Our client portal, RFQ Radar, keeps every quote, order and invoice in one place.

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