Feds Arrest 74 Email Fraudsters Involved in Nigerian BEC Scams
Jun 12, 2018
The United States Department of Justice announced Monday the arrest of 74 email fraudsters across three continents in a global crackdown on a large-scale business email compromise (BEC) scheme. The arrest was the result of a six-month-long operation dubbed " Operation Wire Wire " that involved the US Department of Justice, the US Department of Homeland Security, the US Treasury, and the US Postal Inspection Service. The international law enforcement authorities led by the FBI arrested 42 of the total 74 individuals involved in BEC scheme in the United States, 29 in Nigeria and 3 each in Canada, Mauritius, and Poland. "Foreign citizens perpetrate many BEC scams. Those individuals are often members of transnational criminal organizations, which originated in Nigeria but have spread throughout the world," the DoJ says. Moreover, the authorities seized nearly $2.4 million and recovered about $14 million in fraudulent transfers, according to the FBI, which estima...
