BEC Scammer Pleads Guilty

A Lithuanian man extradited to the US in 2017 has pled guilty to a business email compromise (BEC) scam that netted him more than $100 million.

Evaldas Rimasauskas, 50, operated the BEC scam from 2014 to 2015, fooling a multinational technology firm and global social media company to wire funds into accounts he controlled. The US Attorney's Office did not disclose the names of the victim companies.

Rimasauskas, who now faces a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison for wire fraud, created a company in Latvia with the same name as an Asia-based computer hardware manufacturer, according to the USAO. He sent phishing emails to employees and associates of the victim firms, directing them to purchase products and services from the phony company, and money was wired to accounts he controlled. 

"As admitted today, he devised a blatant scheme to fleece US companies out of $100 million, and then siphoned those funds to bank accounts around the globe.  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," Manhattan U.S. Attorney Geoffrey S. Berman said in a statement. 

Rimasauskas will be sentenced on July 24, 2019.

Read more here. 

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