Irish-headquartered, European low fares airline Ryanair has been hit by a criminal scam that saw €4.6m stolen from its bank accounts. The theft is being investigated by the Criminal Assets Bureau.

It is unclear at this stage whether the attempted fraud was committed at an executive level or whether the theft was the work of a sophisticated hacker group.

“Ryanair confirms that it has investigated a fraudulent electronic transfer via a Chinese bank last week,” the airline stated.

“The airline has been working with its banks and the relevant authorities and understands that the funds – less than US$5m (€4.6m) – have now been frozen.

“The airline expects these funds to be repaid shortly and has taken steps to ensure that this type of transfer cannot recur.

“As this matter is subject to legal proceedings, no further comment will be made,” Ryanair stated.

Ryanair isn’t the only public Irish company to be hit by data breaches in the past year. Last summer, Paddy Power was hit by a data breach that resulted in the personal details of 649,000 customers being stolen, including names, addresses and dates of birth.

Ryanair image via Shutterstock