In an incident, which is both hilarious and surprising, a man has accepted that he stole millions from two of the major tech companies — Google and Facebook — by faking bills of purchases the company never made.
50-year-old Evaldas Rimasauskas, from Lithuania, came up with a deemed perfect plan to extract and ask for money from both the companies from 2013 to 2015, totaling up to around $122 million ($23 million from Google and $99 million from Facebook).
Google and Facebook adhered to the sent invoices and paid off the money without even checking on the authenticity of the bills.
Evaldas, along with some unknown people involved, disguised as an Asian hardware vendor (registered in the name of Taiwan-based Quanta Computer Inc.) and suggested that the companies owed money to the former.
Additionally, a fake bank account was set up in Latvia.
Fast-forward to 2019, Rimasauskas has now pleaded guilty and is in New York and is expected to be convicted for up to 30 years.
While Evaldas had sanctioned $50 million, there is no word on where the remaining $75 million is.
In a statement to the New York Times, Facebook suggested that it was able to recover the money sometime after the incident and is cooperating with the investigation team.
Additionally, Google knows of the fraud. The final verdict will be out on July 24.
