Google and Facebook had been scammed by a Lithuanian man with a wapping estimate of over US$122 Million dollars just by sending random fake invoices.
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50-year old man by the Name Evaldas Rimasauskas, a Lithuanian citizen who recently plead guilty in New York Southern district court in March 2019 is currently facing up to 30 years in prison depending on whether or not he’s is found guilty of wire fraud, three counts of money laundering and identity theft on July 24, 2019.Google and Facebook scammed with fake invoices by 50 year old man.
Evaldas Rimasauskas who was arrested in March of 2017 by Lithuanian authorities, and extradited to the US in August of the same year.
Google and Facebook are few of the companies that fall for the scam which was identified with a Lithuanian court. The court also kept back the names of other company who have been scammed by Evaldas Operations.
“As Evaldas Rimasauskas admitted today, he devised a blatant scheme to fleece US companies out of US$100 million, and then siphoned those funds to bank accounts around the globe,” Manhattan US attorney Geoffrey S. Berman said in a statement.
“Rimasauskas thought he could hide behind a computer screen halfway across the world while he conducted his fraudulent scheme, but as he has learned, the arms of American justice are long, and he now faces significant time in a US prison.”
Rimasauskas and other unnamed co-conspirators sent official-looking invoices to Google and Facebook between the year of 2013 to 2015, impersonating Taiwan-based hardware manufacturer, Quanta Computer Inc. Both companies “regularly conduct multi-million-dollars transactions” with the Asian company. Rimasauskas respectfully defrauded facebook of US$ 99m and Google of US$23M.
Simultaneously, Rimasauskas registered and incorporated a company in Latvia with the same name, and then opened bank accounts in Latvia and Cyprus. His emails “purported to be from employees and agents” of Quanta Computer and “were sent from email accounts designed to create the false appearance” of being genuine.
Once the invoices were paid, Rimasauskas would quickly transfer the funds to different personal bank accounts around the world including Latvia, Cyprus, Slovakia, Lithuania, Hungary, and Hong Kong.
Additionally, he would also forge invoices, contracts and letters to look as if they have been executed and signed by from Facebook and Google to convince the banks to transfer the funds.
Rimasauskas has agreed to forfeit about $50m. Speaking on the incident, both companies said they recovered all or most of the money. A Facebook spokesperson said, “Facebook recovered the bulk of the funds shortly after the incident and has been cooperating with law enforcement in its investigation.”
Similarly, Google in a statement said: “We detected this fraud and promptly alerted the authorities. We recouped the funds, and we’re pleased this matter is resolved.”