International Cricket Council scammed out of R43-million – report

According to ESPN Cricinfo, the International Cricket Council (ICC) has become a victim of a cyber crime that saw this massive amount of money being wire transferred.

The reports states that the alleged scam originated in the USA and happened in 2022, apparently through Business E-mail Compromise (BEC), which the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) describes as “one of the most financially damaging online crimes”.

It’s said that the suspected fraud has been reported to law-enforcement agencies in the USA and an investigation is underway.

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What is a BEC scam that the International Cricket Council apparently fell victim to?

According to the FBI, BEC scams usually involve: “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.”

Criminals are becoming increasingly more “sophisticated”, and that may explain how the International Cricket Council fell victim to this, although it’s unclear exactly who was tricked and convinced into making these wire transfers, or in what amounts the payments were made.

An FBI Congressional Report further states: “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.”

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