The United States Justice Department has filed a civil forfeiture action to recover over $5 million allegedly linked to a business email compromise (BEC) scheme that defrauded a Massachusetts workers union in January 2023.
The complaint details how the union was tricked into transferring $6.4 million to a fraudulent account after receiving a spoofed email that appeared to be from their investment manager. The stolen funds were then moved through a series of intermediary accounts, some of which were located in Hong Kong, China, Singapore, and Nigeria.
Investigators were able to trace a portion of the stolen funds to seven bank accounts in the US, which were subsequently seized.
The US Justice Department is working to recover the remaining funds involved in the scheme.
