A 50-year-old Lithuanian man could face up to 30 years in prison for a phishing scheme involving Facebook and Google.
Evaldas Rimasauskas pled guilty to one count of wire fraud. He and some unnamed conspirators scammed the two giant tech companies into paying over $100 million for work that never took place.
The man said they posed as a Taiwan based laptop manufacturer. Using this, they scammed Google of $23 million in 2013 and Facebook of $98 million in 2015. The company went by the name Quanta Computer.
Allegedly, Rimasauskas was not directly responsible for convincing the companies to send the money. However, he created the avenue to send and receive the money.
Rimasauskas allegedly registered and incorporated a company in Latvia using the Quanta Computer name. He went on to send fraudulent phishing emails to agents from Google and Facebook regularly involved in business with the company.
He had asked to send the money for services rendered by the original Quanta Computer company to accounts controlled by him in Latvia and Cyprus.
Rimasauskas was extradited to the United States in August 2017.
According to a Google spokesperson, they promptly alerted the authorities once they detected the fraud. They were able to recoup funds and resolve the issue.