According to ESPN Cricinfo, the International Cricket Council (ICC) was the victim of a cybercrime that resulted in the wire transfer of this enormous sum of money.
Business E-mail Compromise (BEC), which the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) describes as “one of the most financially damaging online crimes”, seems to have been the means by which the claimed fraud was perpetrated in the United States in 2022.
The alleged scam has reportedly been reported to law enforcement organisations in the United States, and an investigation is now ongoing.
According to the FBI, BEC scams often include “spoofing of a legitimate, known e-mail address or the use of the nearly identical address to appear as someone known to or trusted by the victim. BEC scams are initiated when a victim receives false wire instruction from a criminal attempting to redirect legitimate payments to a bank account controlled by fraudsters.”
The increased sophistication of criminals may explain how the International Cricket Council fell prey to this, however it is unknown who was duped and enticed into making these wire transfers, or how much money was sent.
“The scam has progressed from spoofed e-mails purportedly from chief executive officers requesting wire payments to fraudulent locations, to impersonation of vendor e-mails; spoofed lawyer e-mail accounts; diversion of payroll funds; the targeting of the real estate sector; and fraudulent requests for large amounts of gift cards,” according to an FBI Congressional Report.
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