Google and Facebook have both been taken in a $100 million scam, according to a BBC report.
In March, it was reported that two “US-based companies” — which weren’t names at the time — had been duped into wiring more than $100 million to a Lithuanian phishing scammer’s bank account. On April 27,
Fortune reported that the companies victimized were Google and Facebook. The two online giants have since confirmed they were the victims of the scam, according to the BBC.
The man accused of perpetrating the scam, Evaldas Rimasauskas, allegedly posed as a manufacturer based in Asia. He succeeded in scamming Google and Facebook from at least 2013 until 2015, the BBC reported.
According to the Department of Justice, Rimasauskas sent phony emails to the companies posing as an employee of the Asian firm, with which Google and Facebook regularly did multimillion-dollar business. The DOJ said the scam emails were sent from accounts designed to look like they’d come from the Asia-based firm.
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Rimasauskas allegedly forged invoices, contracts and letters “that falsely appeared to have been executed and signed by executives and agents of the victim companies,” the DOJ said.
“We detected this fraud against our vendor management team and promptly alerted the authorities,” Google said in a statement. “We’ve recouped the funds and we’re pleased this matter is resolved.”
Google did not reveal how much money it had lost in the scam, nor how much it had recouped, according to the BBC. Facebook also declined to say how much it had recouped, although a spokeswoman said the social media titan had “recovered the bulk of the funds.”
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