A 48-year-old man managed to dupe the biggest names in the industry over the course of two years using email phishing.
Scams do not spare even the mightiest in the industry. In a rather embarrassing revelation, technology giants Facebook and Google have been found as one of the victims in a $100 million fraud that was carried out by a 48-year-old man Evaldas Rimasauskas over a span of two years. By using the technique of email phishing, Rimasauskas impersonated a large Asia-based manufacturer to dupe the companies into paying for computer supplies.
In order to carry out the mass scam, he set up multiple accounts in Latvia and Cyprus under the name of ‘computer hardware manufacturer’ and used those fake accounts to request money from Google and Facebook. Given that the names involved were big, the money involved too must be large enough to raise eyebrows at the banks. However, Rimasauskas managed to keep the scam under wraps using forged corporate stamps, letters, and invoices.
By the time the tech giants discovered what was going on, Rimasauskas had managed to scam over $100 million in payments which he stashed away in bank accounts across Eastern Europe.
While the investigation began last year, it was only last month that Rimasauskas was arrested by the Justice Department. However, names of the companies involved was withheld until Fortune unearthed the identities of the companies following interviews with sources close to the case.
Rimasauskas has been charged with three counts of money laundering along with other charges including aggravated identity theft and wire fraud. The maximum sentence for each of these charges is 80 years in prison. However, Rimasauskas has denied the allegations and his lawyer says that he cannot expect a fair and impartial trial in the USA. He is currently facing extradition proceedings in Lithuania.
Meanwhile, Facebook confirmed to Fortune in an email response that it was one of the victims of the fraud, while Google spokesperson wrote, “We detected this fraud against our vendor management team and promptly alerted the authorities,” adding that “We recouped the funds and we’re pleased this matter is resolved.”
The incident is a reminder of how even the biggest of names of the industry are vulnerable to scams and hacking if proper checks and measures are not put into place. While hacking can be averted by using stronger codes in order, email-based phishing scams are harder to detect because the fake emails appear to come from sources which the victims know of or trust.
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