Becoming a world-class scammer or phishing attacker, involves a combination of technical skills, psychological manipulation, and an understanding of human behavior.
Evaldas Rimasauskas of Lithuania has mastered this.
From his cunning methods and trickery, as well as his knowledge, the man managed to wire a total of $122 million from Google and Facebook to bank accounts he controlled.
Rimasauskas pled guilty to one count of wire fraud before U.S. District Judge George B. Daniels, and was then sentenced to 60 months in prison for participating in a fraudulent business email compromise scheme that induced the two U.S.-based internet companies.
Manhattan U.S. Attorney Geoffrey S. Berman said, as quoted by a report by the U.S. Department of Justice:
Rimasauskas managed to do this through a complex scheme.
In or around 2013, he and his unnamed associates registered a company in Latvia a country that borders Lithuania to the north, with the exact same name as a company that is doing business with both Google and Facebook.
The company, known by name as Quanta Computer, is a Taiwan-based computer and electronic hardware manufacturing firm.
After that, Rimasauskas then opened several bank accounts in Latvia and Cyprus, under the name of Quanta Computer.
When his trap is set, Rimasauskas sent fake phishing emails to Google and Facebook’s employees and agents, where he, on behalf of the fake Quanta Computer, asked that the money the companies owed to Quanta Computer for "legitimate" goods and services it had supplied, be sent to the bank accounts under the name of the fake Quanta Computer, which Rimasauskas controls.
The emails were signed off with the names of Quanta Computer’s representatives, and designed to appear as if they are legitimate and came from the Taiwanese company.
This tricked Google and Facebook into "complying with the fraudulent wiring instructions”, the press statement says.
Things didn't stop there.
Because the transactions involved banks, the amount, the sender and the recipient, are all logged. With the money in his fake Quanta Computer bank account, he needs to secure it.
So here, what Rimasauskas did, was quickly transferring that money to many other bank accounts across the world, located in Slovakia, Lithuania, Hungary and Hong Kong, all of which are also controlled by him.
And in order to not raise any suspicion, Rimasauskas also created false documents to explain to the banks the huge amounts of money he was transferring.
The documents included forged invoices, contracts, and letters that falsely appeared to have been executed and signed by executives and agents of both Google and Facebook, and which bore false corporate stamps embossed with the the two companies’ names.
Through this scheme of aggravated identity theft and money laundering, Rimasauskas managed to steal $99 million from Facebook and $23 million from Google from 2013 to 2015.
The most shocking part of the scam is that, both companies didn't look into the legitimacy of the invoices.
The two companies just paid the money.
His successful world-class fraud scheme targeting two of the largest tech companies in the world has caught international headlines.
But the media made it viral, when many internet articles said that Rimasauskas stole $122 million by simply sending random invoices to Google and Facebook, which is something he never did.
Rimasauskas and his associates did a lot of things to make this a successful scheme.
And this made his story even more extraordinary.
Rimasauskas was caught by Lithuanian authorities before being extradited to New York, where he pleaded guilty and in 2019, he was sentenced to 60 months in prison for his criminal scheme.
In addition to the five years in prison, according to a post by the U.S. Department of Justice, Rimasauskas was ordered to forfeit $49.7 million and pay a reimbursement of nearly $26.5 million.
"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," said acting US Attorney Joon Kim at the time of Rimasauskas' arrest
"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."
This kind of fraud is recognized as Business Email Compromise, as explained by a post by the FBI.
"We thank the companies and their banks for acting quickly, coming forward promptly, and cooperating with law enforcement; it led not only to the charges announced today, but also the recovery of much of the stolen funds."
