Security News > 2020 > July > Flashy Nigerian Instagram star extradited to US to face BEC charges
The US has dragged a fancy-pants, Instagram-star, high-fashion-flaunting, alleged Nigerian scammer out of the United Arab Emirates and into Chicago to face charges that he helped launder beaucoup bucks gouged out of businesses in email compromise scams.
The DOJ is charging Abbas with allegedly conspiring to launder hundreds of millions of dollars in BEC and other scams that targeted a US law firm's client, a foreign bank and an English Premier League soccer club, among others.
As the criminal complaint explains, BEC frauds often involve hackers gaining unauthorized access to a business's email account, blocking or redirecting communications to and/or from that email account, and then using the compromised email account, or a spoofed email account, to communicate with targeted employees.
The Department of Justice said on Friday that Abbas was arrested last month in Dubai before being handed over to the FBI. Dubai, Paris, UK, US: like most BEC scams, the money flowed through a tangle of countries and banks, making it tough to investigate and making the con artists tough to bust, US Attorney Nick Hanna said in the DOJ's release.
BEC scams represent the most financially costly type of scheme reported to the FBI. I urge anyone who transfers funds personally or on behalf of a company to educate themselves about BEC so they can identify this insidious scheme before losing sizable amounts of money.