Fraudulent activity in the CRESTA map industry

09 April 2010, 1:43pm

GfK GeoMarketing, the official supplier of the worldwide CRESTA maps, fell victim to an as of yet unidentified person or persons who fraudulently gained access to the company's CRESTA maps. GfK GeoMarketing filed suit against the perpetrator for fraud and theft and is offering a reward of €10,000 for information leading to a conviction.

The fraudulently obtained maps correspond to precisely those countries that GfK GeoMarketing just completed for the CRESTA organization: Germany, China, Japan, Mexico and Australia. These maps would be very difficult or even impossible to reproduce by another provider within a short span of time and in a comparable quality.

"As far as we know, the data were accessed from a location in the Greater London area," explains Wolfram Scholz, CEO of GfK GeoMarketing. "The responsible person has significant knowledge of the CRESTA zones as well as the players in the reinsurance industry. We anticipate that the culprit will attempt to sell these maps or may indeed already have done so in recent weeks."

GfK GeoMarketing asks that anyone who receives or has recently received a suspicious offer of current CRESTA zones for Germany, China, Japan, Mexico or Australia contact them immediately.

"This brazen criminal act will not be tolerated by GfK GeoMarketing," says Wolfram Scholz in an appeal to the GIS sector. "Our data are protected by intellectual property rights and copyright regulations – any reselling or purchasing of the data violates our rights. The entire branch suffers when mutual trust is compromised in this way. We therefore kindly ask market participants to contact us if they are or have been approached with a suspicious offer. Law enforcement personnel can check the legality of the maps with the assistance of external experts. Our maps have special cartographic features and attributes that can be used to trace their origin."

The involvement of legal authorities and third-party experts ensures that any affected company will not be in breach of copyright and license regulations by providing the data.

Tips and information can be sent to Doris Steffen of GfK GeoMarketing: d.steffen@gfk-geomarketing.com or +49 (0)7251 9295180.

GfK GeoMarketing

Geo: International