How $122 Million were stolen from Google and Facebook

Evaldas Rimasauskas of Lithuania plead guilty to US money fraud along with aggravated identity theft, and money laundering charges, admitting that he had stolen $99m from Facebook and $23m from Google between 2013 and 2015. He pleaded guilty last week.

How Evaldas Stolen from Google and Facebook

Evaldas made use of the most effective forms of hacking : Social Engineering . He sent Google and Facebook with fake invoices for items they hadn’t purchased and that he hadn’t provided, which the companies paid anyway.

He sent forged invoices, contracts, and letters that falsely appeared to have been executed and signed by executives and agents of the Victim Companies, and which bore false corporate stamps embossed with the Victim Companies’ names, to be submitted to banks in support of the large volume of funds that were fraudulently transmitted via wire transfer.

If Google could Google

no one at Google or Facebook bothered to check to see if these corresponded to invoices/POs that had been issued within the companies or are legit. Rimasauskas was pretending to be the giant Taiwanese hardware manufacturer Quanta Computer Inc, and had registered a company in Latvia with the same name. Only if they could “google” to see details about the non-existent company, Google stated

We detected this fraud and promptly alerted the authorities. We recouped the funds and we’re pleased this matter is resolved

2013-2015 was the time this fraud kept happening and Google states “we detected this fraud” , well if they could stop bring a new search algorithm update and focus on how easily someone can steal from them.

He’s agreed to give up about $50m. It’s not clear what’s happened to the other $73m, but Rimasauskas was a prolific and baroque money-launderer who squirreled cash away in Cyprus, Lithuania, Hungary, Slovakia, and Latvia. Details were shared in the official indictment.

Facebook and Google defrauded of Millions

DoJ release on this case states that

caused forged invoices, contracts, and letters that falsely appeared to have been executed and signed by executives and agents of the Victim Companies, and which bore false corporate stamps embossed with the Victim Companies’ names, to be submitted to banks in support of the large volume of funds that were fraudulently transmitted via wire transfer.

With the help of several spoofed emails and using the fact the two companies had same names, the scammer was able to trick Google and Facebook employees as well as the banks they worked with to make and approve payments to his Latvian company’s bank accounts.

He has 30 years before he could enjoy his $72 million. What do you think about this scam ?