SafeUM
Home Blog Services Download Help About Recharge

Axarhöfði 14, 110 Reykjavik, Iceland

Iceland - 2015
SafeUM
Blog
Services
Download
Help
About
Recharge
Menu
Archive
TOP Security!
23 Mar 2017

US charges Lithuanian man with $100 million email fraud

U.S. prosecutors have charged a Lithuanian man with engaging in an email fraud scheme in which he bilked two U.S.-based companies out of more than $100 million by posing as an Asian hardware vendor.

Evaldas Rimasauskas, 48, was arrested late last week by Lithuanian authorities, Manhattan federal prosecutors said Tuesday. Rimasauskas does not yet have legal counsel, a spokesman for the prosecutors said.

The alleged scheme is an example of a growing type of fraud called "business email compromise," in which fraudsters ask for money using emails targeted at companies that work with foreign suppliers or regularly make wire transfers. The Federal Bureau of Investigation said last June that since October 2013, U.S. and foreign victims have made 22,143 complaints about business email compromise scams involving requests for almost $3.1 billion in transfers.

In an indictment unsealed Tuesday, prosecutors said that to carry out his scheme, which they said began around 2013 or earlier, Rimasauskas registered a company in Latvia with the same name as an Asian computer hardware manufacturer.

He then sent emails to employees of the two unnamed victim companies asking them to wire money that they actually owed to the Asian company to the sham Latvian company's accounts, prosecutors said. The victim companies are described as a multinational technology company and a multinational social media company.

After they wired money to Rimasauskas's Latvian company, Rimasauskas quickly transferred the funds to different accounts around the world, including in Latvia, Cyprus, Slovakia, Lithuania, Hungary and Hong Kong, prosecutors said. In order to conceal his fraud from banks that handled the transfers, Rimasauskas forged invoices, contracts and letters purportedly signed by executives at the two victim companies, according to prosecutors.

Rimasauskas is charged with wire fraud and money laundering, which each carry a maximum prison sentence of 20 years, and identify theft, which carries a mandatory minimum sentence of two years.

Tags:
fraud USA Lithuania
Source:
Business Insider
1536
Other NEWS
3 Jul 2020 safeum news imgage An encrypted messaging service has been infiltrated by police
4 May 2020 safeum news imgage Two-Factor Authentication ​What Is It and Why You Should Use It
12 Dec 2019 safeum news imgage Encryption is under threat - this is how it affects you
4 Nov 2019 safeum news imgage Should Big Decisions Be Based on Data or Your Intuition?
7 Jun 2018 safeum news imgage VPNFilter malware infecting 500,000 devices is worse than we thought
4 Jun 2018 safeum news imgage Hackers target Booking.com in criminal bid to steal hundreds of thousands from customers
1 Jun 2018 safeum news imgage Operator of World's Top Internet Hub Sues German Spy Agency
30 May 2018 safeum news imgage US says North Korea behind malware attacks
29 May 2018 safeum news imgage Facebook and Google targeted as first GDPR complaints filed
25 May 2018 safeum news imgage A new reason to not buy these cheap Android devices
24 May 2018 safeum news imgage Flaws in smart pet devices, apps could come back to bite owners
23 May 2018 safeum news imgage Google sued for 'clandestine tracking' of 4.4m UK iPhone users' browsing data
21 May 2018 safeum news imgage LocationSmart reportedly leaked phone location data onto the web
18 May 2018 safeum news imgage The SEC created its own scammy ICO to teach investors a lesson
17 May 2018 safeum news imgage Thieves suck millions out of Mexican banks in transfer heist
All news
SafeUM
Confidential Terms of Use Our technologies Company
Follow us
Download
SafeUM © Safe Universal Messenger

Axarhöfði 14,
110 Reykjavik, Iceland

Iceland - 2015