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Arrested man allegedly scammed $100M from two big tech companies
Latvian police have arrested a man on behalf of the Federal Bureau of Investigation for allegedly defrauding two unnamed U.S. tech firms of $100 million in an email scam.
Evaldas Rimasauskas, 48, is alleged to have impersonated an Asian-based manufacturer and managed to persuade employees at the targeted companies, named as being a multinational online social media company and a technology company, to wire him over $100 million to overseas bank accounts he had under his control in Cyprus, Hong Kong, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania and Slovakia.
Rimasauskas is said to have registered a company in Latvia under the same name as the Asian manufacturer, then forged invoices that appeared to be from the company’s executives complete with fake corporate stamps. The companies targeted by Rimasauskas actually had an established relationship with the Asian manufacturer, making his phishing efforts appear to be more legitimate.
It’s not clear how Rimasauskas was eventually caught, particularly given the FBI claims that he managed to gain transfers from the companies for a period of two years from 2013 to 2015, but the good news is that a good part of the money has been recovered.
“From half a world away, Evaldas Rimasauskas allegedly targeted multinational internet companies and tricked their agents and employees into wiring over $100 million to overseas bank accounts under his control,” Acting U.S. Attorney Joon H. Kim said in a statement. “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 cyber criminals. And this arrest should serve as a warning to all cyber criminals that we will work to track them down, wherever they are, to hold them accountable.”
Rimasauskas has been charged with one count of wire fraud and three counts of money laundering, with each charge attracting a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, along with one count of aggravated identity theft which has a mandatory minimum sentence of two years.
Image: Annoying Facebook via photopin (license)
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