The FBI released the below
information:
Federal authorities—including
the Department of Justice and the FBI—announced a major coordinated law
enforcement effort to disrupt international business e-mail compromise (BEC)
schemes that are designed to intercept and hijack wire transfers from businesses
and individuals.
Operation WireWire—which also
included the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of the Treasury,
and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service—involved a six-month sweep that
culminated in over two weeks of intensified law enforcement activity resulting
in 74 arrests in the U.S. and overseas, including 42 in the U.S., 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.
A number of cases charged in
this operation involved international criminal organizations that defrauded
small- to large-sized businesses, while others involved individual victims who
transferred high-dollar amounts or sensitive records in the course of business.
The devastating impacts these cases have on victims and victim companies affect
not only the individual business but also the global economy. Since the
Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) began formally keeping track of BEC and
its variant, e-mail account compromise (EAC), there has been a loss of over
$3.7 billion reported to the IC3.
BEC, also known as
cyber-enabled financial fraud, is a sophisticated scam that often targets
employees with access to company finances and trick them—using a variety of
methods like social engineering and computer intrusions—into making wire
transfers to bank accounts thought to belong to trusted partners but instead
belong to accounts controlled by the criminals themselves. And these same
criminal organizations that perpetrate BEC schemes 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.
Foreign citizens perpetrate
many of these schemes, which originated in Nigeria but have spread throughout
the world.
During Operation WireWire,
U.S. law enforcement agents executed more than 51 domestic actions, including
search warrants, asset seizure warrants, and money mule warning letters. And
local and state law enforcement partners on FBI task forces across the country,
with the assistance of multiple district attorney's offices, charged 15 alleged
money mules for their roles in defrauding victims.
The role of money mules,
witting or unwitting, in BEC schemes is very important—they are used to receive
the stolen money and then transfer the funds as directed by the fraudsters. The
mules usually keep a fraction of the money for their trouble.
Today’s announcement
highlighting this recent surge in law enforcement resources targeting BEC
schemes “demonstrates the FBI's commitment to disrupt and dismantle criminal
enterprises that target American citizens and their businesses,” according to
FBI Director Christopher Wray.
And he added, “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. The
public we serve deserves nothing less.”
Awareness of BEC Schemes Can
Safeguard Your Business
BEC schemes continue to
evolve as criminals come up with new and inventive ways to scam businesses.
Here are the most current and
frequent BEC scenarios identified by the FBI:
Business Executive: Criminals
spoof or compromise e-mail accounts of high-level business executives,
including chief information officers and chief financial officers, which result
in the processing of a wire transfer to a fraudulent account
Real Estate Transactions:
Criminal impersonate sellers, realtors, title companies, or law firms during a
real estate transaction to ask the home buyer for funds to be sent to a
fraudulent account
Data and W-2 Theft:
Criminals, using a compromised business executive’s e-mail account, send
fraudulent requests for W-2 information or other personally identifiable
information to an entity in an organization that routinely maintains that sort
of information
Supply Chain: Criminals send
fraudulent requests to redirect funds during a pending business deal,
transaction, or invoice payment to an account controlled by a money mule or bad
actor
Law Firms: Criminals find out
about trust accounts or litigation and impersonate a law firm client to change
the recipient bank information to a fraudulent account.
If you think you may have
been victimized in a BEC scheme, please file a complaint with the IC3. The more
information law enforcement has on these scams, the better equipped we’ll be to
combat them.
And to further educate
yourself on BEC schemes to help protect your business, read more about how BEC
schemes work and how you can avoid being victimized. You can also take a look
at this IC3 public service announcement on BEC schemes.
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