Yea, it’s kind of like when you hear about a casino getting ripped off.
I like this quote, tho -
“We detected this fraud and promptly alerted the authorities. We recouped the funds and we’re pleased this matter is resolved.”
Immediately?
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Jebus, $122million-- how much money do you need to disappear, and why didn’t he do that?
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Heck, I’d be happy with $500,000!
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Considering the targets of his grift, I kind’a like this guy.
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Someone tell the IRS. Maybe this will be the way we finally get them to pay their taxes.
My guess is that they have these systems and there is always a loophole for vendors who just won’t follow your rules. These are either equally big companies with an incompatible set of policies, companies (especially overseas vendors) who have an effective monopoly on some technology or process, or local utility companies that just refuse to enter the 21st century. Basically, if vendor X is so important that you have to do business with them and they know it, and they can’t or won’t use the secure system, you have to have a fallback. The lowest common denominator is mailed invoices.
I ran into this, we have to do all of our purchasing through a similar online system with supplier registration etc. But the local power company just will not do it. They only support A) using their online billing system, or B) paper invoices and checks or wire transfers.
So my guess is that the scammer knows something about the vendors they impersonated to figure out which ones would be the most effective. Either that or they actually managed to find out about specific legit POs and forged invoices against POs that still had budget allocated.
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ooh ooh I wanna be “middle-aged white lady who complains to the manager” as a distraction.
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I did contracting work for a big company that had a simple, foolproof system for avoiding this sort of scam:
They just didn’t pay contractors.
I wasn’t a fan of that system but I can see now how it would pay off for them.
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Upwards of round about 500 million.
But you don’t “dissappear” - you hide in plain sight.
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I think I could disappear with only ten or twenty million. Buy a fake ID, fake passport even, live modestly in the Ozarks or Belize or Tahiti. I guess that’s the problem. . . who wants to live modestly when you’ve got millions of dollars stashed away.
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First of all, you don’t get a fake ID/passport.
You get a real ID/passport with a fake name.
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Turnabout is fair play but I just feel bad for the members of the respective AP Departments whose jobs would have been jeopardized by this.
Well, first of all you take your money in such a way that no one says it’s a crime. Or at least no one who matters.
Then you take your very real identity and passport and live wherever the hell you like.
Sometimes little people will come along and try and steal some of your money. They usually get what’s coming to them - as here.
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Tahiti? Good luck getting a visa with your fake ID.
Gosh darn it! Now what am I going to do with these ill-gotten millions?
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He needs to run to country that doesn’t have an extradition treaty with the US, one of:
Afghanistan, Algeria, Andorra, Angola, Armenia, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brunei, Burkina Faso, Burma, Burundi, Cambodia, Cameroon, Cape Verde, the Central African Republic, Chad, Mainland China, Comoros, Congo (Kinshasa), Congo (Brazzaville), Djibouti, Equatorial, Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gabon, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Indonesia, Ivory Coast, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Kuwait, Laos, Lebanon, Libya, Macedonia, Madagascar, Maldives, Mali, Marshall Islands, Mauritania, Micronesia, Moldova, Mongolia, Montenegro, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Nepal, Niger, Oman, Qatar, Russia, Rwanda, Samoa, São Tomé & Príncipe, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Serbia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Togo, Tunisia, Uganda, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan, Vanuatu, Vatican, Vietnam and Yemen.
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I think i’d rather invest in better papers; looking at a lot of those options.
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Christ, Belarus is right next door to Lithuania! He could still have sneaked back to visit friends on weekends.
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Wait. This guy scammed $122M from Facebook and Google, but the comment thread here is full of grifting advice? Classic internets.
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