Facebook, Google, and others Swindled for $100M

FrgMstr

FrgMstr

Just Plain Mean
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I have been watching this story out of Lithuania for about a month now and it has come to somewhat of a head. Evaldas Rimasauskas, a Lithuanian man, has been in custody since March of this year at the request of the U.S. Justice Department. He is suspected of swindling companies out of over $100M through an email fraud scheme. He is being charged with wire fraud and money laundering here in the U.S, and will now be extradited to face those charges here. Everything related to what actually happened has been kept secret up to this point, but Google and Facebook were both mentioned in the extradition request. I personally cannot wait to find out the details behind and email scam that can net you $100M from two of the biggest most security conscious companies on the planet.


VILNIUS (Reuters) - A Lithuanian accused of swindling Facebook and Google out of more than $100 million through an email fraud scheme must be extradited to the United States to stand trial, a court in Vilnius ruled on Monday.
 
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He setup a fake company and bank accounts in his country that were named the same as a Asian company they did business with that often did multimillion dollar transactions. He then also make fake email accounts and contacted people at said companies getting them to make payments for actual goods and services to those fake accounts. How he did this without some inside information, I don't know. But being smart enough to pull something that complex off to the tune of $100M, but not being smart enough to move somewhere the US could not get to him is ungodly stupid. Thats don't have to work for the rest of your life money, why you would stick around I have no idea.

Better information here.

And actual PDF of the indictment here.
 
BlueFireIce said:
He setup a fake company and bank accounts in his country that were named the same as a Asian company they did business with that often did multimillion dollar transactions. He then also make fake email accounts and contacted people at said companies getting them to make payments for actual goods and services to those fake accounts. How he did this without some inside information, I don't know. But being smart enough to pull something that complex off to the tune of $100M, but not being smart enough to move somewhere the US could not get to him is ungodly stupid. Thats don't have to work for the rest of your life money, why you would stick around I have no idea.

Better information here.

And actual PDF of the indictment here.
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Many thanks! Updated the front page news with your information.
 
he probably just sent payment request to the billing departments and they got payed
 
NoOther said:
Very possible that they had the person's assets frozen to prevent that very thing.
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They might not have noticed till they received a past due bill from the original supplier. That could be up to a month later...
 
NoOther said:
Very possible that they had the person's assets frozen to prevent that very thing.
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From my understanding and reading the papers, he had the money, good and clear and did this for over 2-3 years. This was not a single lump sum payment, or over a short time frame. He also had the money in a number of banks, as once it cleared the fake bank he moved the money into holding banks in I believe 5 or 6 different countries.

So probably just greed, they got away with it for so long and so well. The documents also hint at others involved, I am thinking possibly someone on the inside, would make much more sense.
 
gwarren007 said:
They might not have noticed till they received a past due bill from the original supplier. That could be up to a month later...
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BlueFireIce said:
From my understanding and reading the papers, he had the money, good and clear and did this for over 2-3 years. This was not a single lump sum payment, or over a short time frame. He also had the money in a number of banks, as once it cleared the fake bank he moved the money into holding banks in I believe 5 or 6 different countries.

So probably just greed, they got away with it for so long and so well. The documents also hint at others involved, I am thinking possibly someone on the inside, would make much more sense.
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You guys do realize in the course of a normal investigation of fraud, they attempt to track the money. If they find something is amiss, and then find enough evidence, they will then request a warrant. Once they have a warrant they will freeze all the person's assets. Up to that point the person may not even be aware that they are under investigation. Many times they aren't aware until their assets are frozen. So while he may have done all the things you say, that doesn't prevent law enforcement from freezing assets. Once the person's assets are frozen, it makes it much more difficult for them to move.

Now, if you are saying they could have moved once they initially got the money, sure they could have. But most likely the person thought they would not get caught and by the time they found out law enforcement was on to them, it was too late. Many criminals fall into the same trap, they don't think they will get caught. Also many have family, friends, and lives they don't want to give up. It is easy to say that once they had all that money, they could just run away somewhere, it's much harder to make that decision yourself to leave everything behind.
 
You don't think after they received the money they could get it to a Swiss account or another account that they could not have frozen?

Their family could still use the money even if convicted.
 
gwarren007 said:
You don't think after they received the money they could get it to a Swiss account or another account that they could not have frozen?

Their family could still use the money even if convicted.
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They may have, but unlike the movies, they don't actually prevent law enforcement from seizing assets if there is due cause. Even the Cayman Islands will divulge accounts and information if there is enough evidence. And on top of all that, you have to actually go through the process of opening accounts there, which isn't as easy as one would think. Also, this still denotes that the individual thinks of this in time. Initially they may not have even known they could pull this off, and probably not to the extent they were able to do it. So by the time they started accruing enough to open accounts and try to hide their money, it may have been too late.
 
NoOther said:
You guys do realize in the course of a normal investigation of fraud, they attempt to track the money. If they find something is amiss, and then find enough evidence, they will then request a warrant. Once they have a warrant they will freeze all the person's assets. Up to that point the person may not even be aware that they are under investigation. Many times they aren't aware until their assets are frozen. So while he may have done all the things you say, that doesn't prevent law enforcement from freezing assets. Once the person's assets are frozen, it makes it much more difficult for them to move.

Now, if you are saying they could have moved once they initially got the money, sure they could have. But most likely the person thought they would not get caught and by the time they found out law enforcement was on to them, it was too late. Many criminals fall into the same trap, they don't think they will get caught. Also many have family, friends, and lives they don't want to give up. It is easy to say that once they had all that money, they could just run away somewhere, it's much harder to make that decision yourself to leave everything behind.
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You do realize the money was moved 3-4 times and not a single bank was in the USA? Only one bank was even in his own country. He had significant time to move the money where ever and there is also no indication that the money has been frozen. the point is not where the money was held, but where he him self chose to stay, that being somewhere that will extradite him.
 
BlueFireIce said:
You do realize the money was moved 3-4 times and not a single bank was in the USA? Only one bank was even in his own country. He had significant time to move the money where ever and there is also no indication that the money has been frozen. the point is not where the money was held, but where he him self chose to stay, that being somewhere that will extradite him.
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I do realize that, and you do realize that many criminals end up doing the same kind of thing, and end up getting caught the same kind of way. We don't know why he made the decisions he made, but it could be that neither the Swiss, nor the Cayman Islands would allow him to open an account. Or maybe they would, but they would not be willing to keep it from the authorities. Moving money to banks outside the US really means nothing in this case. The companies and the US merely need to present evidence and ask cooperation of the banks, which normally the banks will provide given the evidence.

Also moving money around between banks, has no bearing on where the guy chooses to stay. Most people with money in the Swiss and Cayman Island banks don't live there after all, and most of them don't live in non-extradition countries either.
 
NoOther said:
I do realize that, and you do realize that many criminals end up doing the same kind of thing, and end up getting caught the same kind of way. We don't know why he made the decisions he made, but it could be that neither the Swiss, nor the Cayman Islands would allow him to open an account. Or maybe they would, but they would not be willing to keep it from the authorities. Moving money to banks outside the US really means nothing in this case. The companies and the US merely need to present evidence and ask cooperation of the banks, which normally the banks will provide given the evidence.

Also moving money around between banks, has no bearing on where the guy chooses to stay. Most people with money in the Swiss and Cayman Island banks don't live there after all, and most of them don't live in non-extradition countries either.
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Again, he had banks all over, nothing has been shown that the money has been frozen and according to the indictment, had years to do something. I also said nothing about banks not following along, however, when outside of the US, takes time and different court systems. As for who does what and where is a matter of what they are doing and where it is being done. His choices were stupid for such a complex operation.
 
BlueFireIce said:
Again, he had banks all over, nothing has been shown that the money has been frozen and according to the indictment, had years to do something. I also said nothing about banks not following along, however, when outside of the US, takes time and different court systems. As for who does what and where is a matter of what they are doing and where it is being done. His choices were stupid for such a complex operation.
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First, I didn't say his assets were frozen, I merely said that may have been the case. Also, not sure why you keep bringing up banks outside the US, what does that matter in this case? Obviously they were compliant as both Facebook and Google reported they were able to recover the majority of their funds. As for the person's choices being stupid, I wholeheartedly agree, it is stupid to try and commit fraud, even more especially so against a major company with so many resources at their disposal.
 
NoOther said:
First, I didn't say his assets were frozen, I merely said that may have been the case. Also, not sure why you keep bringing up banks outside the US, what does that matter in this case? Obviously they were compliant as both Facebook and Google reported they were able to recover the majority of their funds. As for the person's choices being stupid, I wholeheartedly agree, it is stupid to try and commit fraud, even more especially so against a major company with so many resources at their disposal.
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Because of time frame needed to do something vs a bank under the same court of law, as shown he had years. You quoted me stating that he might not have had time or known he was being looked at, it's obvious he didn't know, however time was definitely not an issue and goes back to what I said in that post about greed and being stupid.
 
BlueFireIce said:
Because of time frame needed to do something vs a bank under the same court of law, as shown he had years. You quoted me stating that he might not have had time or known he was being looked at, it's obvious he didn't know, however time was definitely not an issue and goes back to what I said in that post about greed and being stupid.
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Time in what respect? Did he have that 100m back in 2013 when they first discovered an issue? Probably not, the scam was still going on. We are both making assumptions here, I merely stated the reasons why it may have not been so easy for him to pick up and go. First, he probably had a life where he was and felt no reason to run, then by the time he realized someone was one to him, or the scheme was too big to keep up, it may have been too late. Think about the criminals who spend their entire lives in the same place committing crimes and never leave. What good is all the money if you can't live the way you want to. What was the point then to obtain the money if you couldn't live how you want.

Also if you think about it another way, transferring the money all over the place, and then bolting would be a surefire way to clue people in that something is amiss. That draws far more attention to yourself, usually making it easier for authorities to zero in on you. Add to that many criminals who decided to live life on the run have said that they wish they would have stayed and were caught sooner, at least then they wouldn't have had to upend their lives.
 
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