Evaldas Rimasauskas was sentenced to five years in federal prison on December 19, 2019, after pleading guilty to wire fraud in a business-email-compromise scheme. Prosecutors said he used a Latvian company with the same name as legitimate computer manufacturer Quanta Computer to redirect more than $120 million in expected supplier payments from Google and Facebook.
The short version
Rimasauskas, a Lithuanian citizen, impersonated Quanta Computer—the real Taiwanese hardware manufacturer used by both technology companies. From approximately 2013 through 2015, he and other participants sent fraudulent emails and payment instructions supported by fake invoices, contracts, letters, signatures and corporate stamps.
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Contemporary reporting identified approximately $99 million from Facebook and $23 million from Google, or about $122 million altogether. The U.S. Department of Justice described the total more cautiously as more than $120 million.
How the scheme worked
- Use a trusted supplier’s identity: A Latvian company was created using the same name as the legitimate Quanta Computer.
- Imitate supplier communications: Look-alike email accounts and domains were used to communicate with employees and agents involved in vendor payments.
- Redirect legitimate transactions: The requests were presented in the context of genuine supplier relationships, making them appear to be routine payment instructions rather than random invoices.
- Support the deception with paperwork: Fraudulent invoices, contracts, letters, signatures and corporate stamps were submitted to make the transfers appear authorized.
- Move the money internationally: Funds initially went to accounts in Latvia and Cyprus before being transferred through accounts in Slovakia, Lithuania, Hungary and Hong Kong, among other locations.
The central weakness was not necessarily a breach of Google’s or Facebook’s networks. It was trust in a familiar vendor and the payment processes surrounding that relationship. That makes the case more accurately described as business email compromise (BEC), vendor impersonation and payment-redirection fraud than as a conventional hacking or malware attack.
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Why the impersonation was convincing
Quanta Computer was a real supplier and commercial partner. Employees were therefore expecting large payments to the company. A fake entity bearing the same name could blend into an existing vendor relationship, particularly when emails were reinforced with plausible corporate documents and bank instructions.
The case illustrates why a familiar sender name is not enough to authenticate a payment request. A message can look consistent with an established business relationship while still directing money to an account controlled by a fraudster.
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What happened to the money?
The international transfers helped conceal the proceeds and made recovery more difficult. The DOJ said Rimasauskas also caused forged documents to be submitted to banks in support of the wire transfers.
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One free scan finds every outdated or missing driver and matches the right update for your exact hardware.Free scan · exact hardware matchAt sentencing, the court ordered:
- $49,738,559.41 in forfeiture
- $26,479,079.24 in restitution
- Two years of supervised release after imprisonment
Forfeiture and restitution are different legal orders. They should not be added together and treated as a complete accounting of the money stolen or recovered. The DOJ’s sentencing announcement does not provide a full victim-by-victim recovery ledger.
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Google said it detected the fraud, alerted authorities and recouped the funds, according to contemporaneous reporting. Other reporting said Facebook remained unable to recover approximately $26.5 million. Those recovery statements should be understood as attributed reports, not as a complete accounting established by the DOJ release.
Arrest, plea and sentence
Lithuanian authorities arrested Rimasauskas in March 2017. He was extradited to the United States in August 2017, pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud in March 2019, and was sentenced in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York on December 19, 2019.
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Judge George B. Daniels imposed a sentence of 60 months—five years—in federal prison. Earlier coverage discussed a possible statutory maximum of up to 30 years based on the charges initially faced. That was potential exposure, not the sentence ultimately imposed.
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The DOJ’s sentencing release described the victims as two U.S.-based internet companies. Contemporary reporting and a Lithuanian court order identified those companies as Google and Facebook.
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What businesses can learn from the case
BEC attacks target payment workflows and trusted relationships, so perimeter security alone cannot prevent them. Organizations should:
- Verify payment or bank-account changes through a separate, trusted communication channel.
- Use contact information already held in the vendor master record—not details supplied in the new email.
- Require two-person approval for large, unusual or newly redirected payments.
- Monitor look-alike domains and email accounts resembling vendors or executives.
- Reconfirm beneficiary changes directly with a known supplier contact.
- Train finance, procurement and executive-assistant teams to recognize urgency, secrecy and altered payment instructions.
- Maintain a rapid bank-recall and incident-escalation procedure.
What the public record establishes—and what it does not
The public record establishes the fraudulent vendor impersonation, the approximate 2013–2015 fraud period, the more-than-$120-million aggregate amount, the arrest and extradition timeline, the guilty plea and the five-year sentence.
It does not, based on the sources summarized here, establish the exact number of emails, domains or accounts used; the complete identities and roles of every participant; the precise amount ultimately recovered by each victim; or Rimasauskas’s exact release date.
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U.S. Department of Justice sentencing release | CyberScoop contemporary coverage | BleepingComputer guilty-plea coverage
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