Expert Comment: Fraudster guilty of stealing $123m from tech giants with simple invoicing scam

Evaldas Rimasauskas pleaded guilty to defrauding tech giants out of $123 million by using fake invoices to trick employees into wiring money to his bank accounts. The fraudster set up a company in the same name of a legitimate supplier and proceeded to bill for fake hardware neither company had actually purchased.

Alex Saric, smart procurement expert at Ivalua made the following comment  :

“While this scam may look sophisticated, this is fairly simple and reflects the vulnerability of organizations that have not digitized their spend management processes. Despite monumental budgets, organisations as data-centric as Facebook should be able to match an invoice to a real purchase automatically, instead of being duped into paying millions of pounds to a scammer. Invoicing is an area ripe for fraudsters and cybercriminals, who know employees may not always question their validity, particularly if they look convincing. Digitalisation can play a vital role in preventing this. By digitizing the end-end process of contracting, buying and invoicing, organizations can ensure automated matching of invoices to purchase orders and contracts, eliminating the potential for fraud. This is a key benefit of implementing fully integrated suites with a unified data model. This also allows organisations to automate the entire process, helping save time, and in this instance, prevent money getting into the wrong hands.”