Major internet giants Google and Facebook became victims of nearly $100 million payment scam. Phishing scammers targeted the employees of these two tech giants eventually making them their prey.
A European based fraud Evaldas Rimasauskas was arrested recently for duping employees of Facebook and Google. In March, a story was out that a Lithuanian man was arrested on being charged for an email phishing scam against two US-based technology companies, by then, the names of the companies weren’t disclosed by them.
Two days back, reports were out that the companies were none other than Google and Facebook. And there are also proofs that the companies transferred almost $100 million to the conman’s account.
This is how the companies got tricked
This 48-year-old Evaldas managed to establish a company and named his company same as that of Asian Computer manufacturer company. He then sent out phishing emails to the employees of Google as well as Facebook. He intelligently targetted only those people who transfer money from their companies to their vendors. Without a second thought, the employees started transferring the money thinking they are actually sending out to their vendors.
Once he received all the money from the two companies, he started to wire the cash to multiple accounts all over the globe. It was actually very simple for Evaldas to mask his fraud as he managed to forged invoices, contracts, and letters signed by executives of these two internet giants.
Evaldas Rimasauskas was charged with one count of identity theft and three counts of money laundering. He is sentenced to prison for 20 years and also an additional 2 years with charges of identity theft.
It is actually hard to imagine that these major technology giants like Google and Facebook had fallen prey to this individual.
