FBI Task Force: Email Scams Netted Over $214 Million In A Year

Email scams are something that every single computer users, especially those who are new to the Internet, ought to be aware of. I am quite surprised to realize that while we give proper training and classes to those who drive, when it comes to the online, you would most probably have to teach yourself, and sometimes, learning a lesson can be particularly expensive. An FBI task force has shared that there is an email scam going around which preys on businesses with bogus invoices has managed to pick up over $214 million from victims across 45 countries – and this slick operation has been in force for slightly more than a year.

The Internet Crime Complaint Center, which a joint effort of the FBI and the nonprofit National White Collar Crime Center, claims that the losses were calculated from October 1, 2013 to December 1, 2014. This scheme’s modus operandi is like this – fake invoices will be delivered to businesses which deal with overseas suppliers, where payment is asked for via wire transfer. The task force mentioned, “The fraudulent wire transfer payments sent to foreign banks may be transferred several times but are quickly dispersed. Asian banks, located in China and Hong Kong, are the most commonly reported ending destination for these fraudulent transfers.”

So far, there has been 1,198 US victims and 928 in other countries, where US firms have lost over $179 million out of the lot.

Edwin Kee
Categories: Computers
Tags: email, scam