View this article online: https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/national/2018/06/12/491799.htm
Federal law enforcement officials announced a significant coordinated effort to disrupt Business Email Compromise (BEC) schemes used to intercept and hijack wire transfers from businesses and individuals, including senior citizens.
The effort has culminated in 74 arrests, including 42 in the United States and 29 in Nigeria, and three in Canada, Mauritius and Poland. The operation also resulted in the seizure of nearly $2.4 million, and the disruption and recovery of approximately $14 million in fraudulent wire transfers.
Nicknamed Operation Wire Wire, the effort, which was coordinated by the FBI, involved the U.S. Departments of Justice, Homeland Security and Treasury and the Postal Inspection Service over a six month period,
BEC, also known as cyber-enabled financial fraud, targets employees with access to company finances and businesses working with foreign suppliers and/or businesses that regularly perform wire transfer payments. The same criminal organizations that perpetrate BEC also exploit individual victims, often real estate purchasers, the elderly, and others, by convincing them to make wire transfers to bank accounts controlled by the criminals. The FBI said this is often accomplished by impersonating a key employee or business partner after obtaining access to that person’s email account or sometimes done through romance and lottery scams.
According to U.S. officials, BEC scams may involve fraudulent requests for checks rather than wire transfers; they may target sensitive information such as personally identifiable information (PII) or employee tax records instead of, or in addition to, money; and they may not involve an actual “compromise” of an email account or computer network. Foreign citizens involved in BEC scams are often members of transnational criminal organizations, which originated in Nigeria but have spread throughout the world, according to the FBI..”
“This operation demonstrates the FBI’s commitment to disrupt and dismantle criminal enterprises that target American citizens and their businesses,” said FBI Director Christopher A. Wray. “We will continue to work together with our law enforcement partners around the world to end these fraud schemes and protect the hard-earned assets of our citizens.”
A number of cases involved international criminal organizations that defrauded small to large sized businesses, while others involved individual victims who transferred high dollar funds or sensitive records in the course of business.
Among the federal cases, 23 individuals were charged in the Southern District of Florida with laundering at least $10 million from proceeds of BEC scams, including eight people charged in an indictment unsealed last week in Miami. Eight defendants are alleged to have conspired to launder proceeds from numerous BEC scams, totaling at least approximately $5 million, including approximately $1.4 million from a victim corporation in Seattle, as well as various title companies and a law firm.
Two Nigerian nationals residing in Dallas, Texas, were charged in an indictment filed on June 6 in the Southern District of Georgia. They are charged with laundering approximately $665,000 in illicit funds.
Two men were charged in a seven-count indictment in the District of Connecticut in a BEC scheme involving an attempted loss to victims of approximately $2.6 million, including at least $440,000 in actual losses to one victim in Connecticut. A third co-conspirator pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud.
Another Nigerian was charged in an indictment filed on May 17 in the District of Massachusetts with two counts of unlawful possession of a means of identification as part of a larger fraud scheme.