HomeNewsNewsEmail scams costliest type of cybercrime; siphoning billions of dollars from US economy

Email scams costliest type of cybercrime; siphoning billions of dollars from US economy

RICHMOND, Va. – A shopping spree in Beverly Hills, a luxury vacation in Mexico, a bank account that jumped from $299.77 to $1.4 million overnight.

From the outside, it looked like Moe and Kateryna Abourched had won the lottery.

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But this big payday didn’t come from lucky numbers. Rather, a public school district in Michigan was tricked into wiring its monthly health insurance payment to the bank account of a California nail salon the Abourcheds owned, according to a search warrant application filed by a Secret Service agent in federal court.

The district — and taxpayers — fell victim to an online scam called Business Email Compromise, or BEC for short, police say. The couple deny any wrongdoing and have not been charged with any crimes.

BEC scams are a type of crime where criminals hack into email accounts, pretend to be someone they’re not…

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