14 DAY TRIAL // 10 individuals, most of them from Nigeria, were arrested on Tuesday by the Italian Financial Police (Guardia di Finanza) for laundering money resulting from scams that caused losses of over €2.5 / $2.74 million.
The law enforcement operation was conducted with the support of Europol and the FBI and engaged more than 130 police officers. The money laundering operation extended to the United States and Europe.
Social engineering used to divert payments
The crooks were part of an international cyber gang that ran business email compromise (BEC) and romance scams, which impacted hundreds of people and tens of companies, according to Europol.
BEC, or payment diversion fraud, is a carefully planned scam that involves gathering information about the targeted firm and its business partners.
After learning how the money transactions are carried out, the crooks impersonate one of the company’s suppliers or customers and ask the staff in charge of payments to transfer the money to a different account than the regular one, which is controlled by the members of the cybercriminal group.
Assuming the identity of a business partner is generally done by using similar or spoofed email addresses, and sometimes fake fax communication or even over the phone, Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) said in a report on BEC scams released in January.
The statistics made public by IC3 show that last year there were 1,198 victims of BEC scams in the US alone and the total loss amounted to almost $180 / €164 million. The number of victims from all over the world was 2,126 and the estimated financial loss they suffered reached almost $215 / €196 million.
Cash was withdrawn hours after pulling the scam
Europol said that the arrested Nigerians were also involved in romance scams, which target members of dating websites. After gaining the trust of the victims, the crooks ask for money for various reasons.
Law enforcement officers followed the money trail of fraudulent transactions and discovered end destinations across several jurisdictions.
“The criminal group relied on a network of accomplices who operated a sort of coordinated 'bank run' within a few hours in order to make withdrawals in cash from the bank accounts chosen as final destinations,” Europol says.
Igor Angelini, the head of Europol's Financial Intelligence Group, said that operations of this kind can be dismantled by combining the efforts and knowledge of law enforcement organizations in different European Union countries.