# Facebook-google Scammer Pleads Guilty In $121 Million Theft



## 1QTPie (Mar 25, 2019)

By 
Chris Dolmetsch
March 20, 2019, 11:05 AM EDT Updated on March 20, 2019, 7:01 PM EDT

A Lithuanian man admitted he helped trick Facebook Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google into sending more than $100 million through a phishing scheme.



Evaldas Rimasauskas, 50, pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud before U.S. District Judge George Daniels on Wednesday under an agreement with prosecutors and will forfeit $49.7 million. Rimasauskas was extradited to New York in August 2017. He faces as many as 30 years in prison when he is sentenced July 24.


Prosecutors alleged that Rimasauskas, along with some unidentified co-conspirators, helped orchestrate a scheme in which fake emails were sent to employees and agents of the two tech giants. The thieves pretended to represent Taiwanese hardware maker Quanta Computer. They told Facebook and Google workers that the companies owed Quanta money, and then directed payments be sent to bank accounts controlled by the scammers.



“Rimasauskas thought he could hide behind a computer screen halfway across the world while he conducted his fraudulent scheme, but as he has learned, the arms of American justice are long, and he now faces significant time in a U.S. prison,” U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman in Manhattan said in a statement.



Dressed in tan prison clothing and speaking in Russian through a translator, Rimasauskas told the judge he took part in the fraud scheme from October 2013 to October 2015, posing as a Quanta employee, creating fake bank accounts in Latvia and Cyprus to receive the scammed proceeds, and signing fake contracts and documents that were submitted to banks to support the wire transfers.

“I fully understood that my actions were fraud,” Rimasauskas said.



Daniels asked Rimasauskas why the victims wired the money and whether they were promised anything in return.

“I’m not sure 100 percent because I was asked to open bank accounts,” Rimasauskas said. “After that I did not do anything with these accounts.”

Assistant U.S. Attorney Eun Young Choi told the judge that prosecutors don’t allege that Rimasauskas was the one who directly induced the companies to send the money.

“He created the infrastructure to further the fraudulent transfers,” Choi said.

The scheme netted about $23 million from Google in 2013 and about $98 million from Facebook in 2015, according to a person familiar with the case, who asked not to be named because the companies haven’t been publicly identified by prosecutors as the victims.

Google said in a statement that it detected the fraud, promptly alerted authorities and has recouped the funds.

“Facebook recovered the bulk of the funds shortly after the incident and has been cooperating with law enforcement in its investigation,” the company said in a statement.

The case is U.S. v. Rimasauskas, 16-cr-841, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).


https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...ty-in-100-million-scam-of-facebook-and-google


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## shortycocoa (Mar 25, 2019)

100 million dollars????  I know it says Google detected the fraud, but I need details.  Like, HOW did he (they) get caught?


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## Crackers Phinn (Mar 25, 2019)

Okay, rule number one if you steal $100 million dollas:  Don't stay in the same place you were at when you stole it.   That's how them dudes got caught in Dead Presidents.  Robbed a bank around the corner and hid out at home. 

They shole don't make criminals how they used to.


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## Pat Mahurr (Mar 25, 2019)

^^I nominate as rule number two: don’t be greedy. If you make millions off Google, don’t hit up Facebook.  Just go somewhere and lay low. Be a Robbing One-Hit Wonder.


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## Chicoro (Mar 26, 2019)

Universal Rule: Things aren't always what they appear to be.


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## 1QTPie (Mar 26, 2019)

I don't know why he didn't flee to a place with no extradition.  Looks like he just did it to do it.  People are crazy.  Who even thinks of these things?


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## Crackers Phinn (Mar 26, 2019)

Chicoro said:


> Universal Rule: Things aren't always what they appear to be.


I would be right there with you if Facebook hadn't got their money back.


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## Chicoro (Mar 26, 2019)

Crackers Phinn said:


> I would be right there with you if Facebook hadn't got their money back.



It all seems so 'odd' to me, on an intuitive level.


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## BrownEyez22 (Mar 26, 2019)

Why yall have me googling countries with no extradition lol!


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## Crackers Phinn (Mar 26, 2019)

BrownEyez22 said:


> Why yall have me googling countries with no extradition lol!


LHCF'nem turning you into a criminal mastermind!


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## shortycocoa (Mar 28, 2019)

BrownEyez22 said:


> Why yall have me googling countries with no extradition lol!



Girl I did that yesterday.


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## nyeredzi (Mar 30, 2019)

I opened this thread like Ricky Gervais is an international scammer?!


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