The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that a Lithuanian man with the name Evaldas Rimasauskas had been arrested for fraud, aggravated identity theft and money laundering. He allegedly scammed two major U.S. tech companies out of more than $100 million through an elaborate phishing scam.
Previously, the DOJ had released a press statement after charges against Rimasauskas were framed. However, it did not give out names of the victim companies, and described them as “a multinational technology company and a multinational online social media company”.
It was later revealed that the two companies were Google and Facebook.
To scam the two tech companies, Rimasauskas forged corporate stamps, email addresses and invoices. He pretended to be a large Asian-based electronic manufacturer that both Facebook and Google does business with. The point was to trick companies into paying for computer supplies.
For over two years, the man sent phishing emails to employees of the targeted companies and convinced them to wire-transfer millions of dollars at a time to a fraudulent bank account controlled by Rimasauskas.
By the time the victims realized the mistake, the scammer had stolen more than $100 million. Rimasauskas promptly stashed the cash in bank accounts across Latvia, Cyprus, Slovakia, Lithuania, Hungary, and Hong Kong.
These allegations first appeared in a sealed indictment filed by federal prosecutors in New York last December, and Rimasauskas was arrested three months later.
With DOJ's help, Google and Facebook have been able to recover most of the stolen money. However, they did not reveal how much money they have recovered,
"We detected this fraud against our vendor management team and promptly alerted the authorities. We recouped the funds and we're pleased this matter is resolved," said a Google spokesperson. As for Facebook, "Facebook recovered the bulk of the funds shortly after the incident and has been cooperating with law enforcement in its investigation," said a company spokesperson.
Both Google and Facebook are among the largest internet companies in the world with some of the most sophisticated security systems. Rimasauskas's case brings to surface the fact that no company, big or small, is fully protected against scam attacks by cybercriminal.
