14 DAY TRIAL // One scammer managed to trick US tech companies into paying more than $100 million.
The news comes from the Department of Justice and the FBI who charged a Lithuanian man with committing fraud, after he managed to scam two companies into paying a really big sum of money.
"This case should serve as a wake-up call to all companies - even the most sophisticated - that they too can be victims of phishing attacks by criminals," the US attorney said.
The two companies that were scammed were not named, but the authorities did mention that one of them specializes in Internet-related services and products, while the second is a multinational corporation providing online social media and networking services.
The elaborate scheme
Evaldas Rimasauskas, the scammer indicted by the US, pretended to be a popular Asian computer hardware company by registering his own company in Latvia back in 2014, holding the same name. He then allegedly went on to forge emails from employees of the Asian company and started sending invoices to the two US tech companies. Since these companies had deals with the hardware supplier, they started paying.
The criminal asked the two companies to send the payments to his bank accounts in Latvia and Cyprus, prosecutors say. Before the scheme met its end, more than $100 million were wired into his accounts. To avoid detection, the money was spread over multiple accounts at banks in Latvia, Hungary, Slovakia, and Hong Kong.
Another part of his scheme was conducted by sending phishing emails to employees at the two companies. He was able to get his hands on files that helped him forge contracts and letters with the names and signatures of executives from the company he was impersonating, as well as a fake corporate stamp.
Rimasauskas was arrested last week and charged with wire fraud, money laundering, and identity theft. He could spend 20 years behind bars for his actions.