Anatomy of a business email scam: FBI dossier details how fraudster pocketed $500k+ by redirecting payments

A fraudster has admitted he tricked two suppliers into paying him more than $500,000 by impersonating staff at a subcontractor and a retail outlet via email. Kenenty Hwan Kim, aka Myung Kim, 64, pleaded guilty [PDF] in a Texas court this week to one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering. He confessed to overseeing two …

[aregross]

Electrolux? A bit of 'Hoovering' there!

[Snake]

Not very good

Criminals are criminals because, well, criminals are stupid. It is easy to move large sums of money from one place to another if said money is acknowledged to be paying commercial invoices, as the original misdirected payments to the thief proved.

The South African mule should have paid the small amount of funds to officially register a business entity (as, being South Africa, I would believe it to be somewhat easy). The American thief already had a business registered. Then simply send large commercial invoice requests between businesses via your corporate banking. "1,000 Item #573ETD Doodad, @$23.67/ea. Freight Onboard".

But no. I'm sure they took short cuts. Because dumb criminals are dumb.

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: Not very good

"Criminals are criminals because, well, criminals are stupid."

The criminals you hear about in trials like this are stupid. They're a subset of the set of all criminals. But how big a subset?

[Julz]

Re: Not very good

And lets not forget to add in those that have enough money that they act with immunity.

[Pascal Monett]

Not to mention those who have enough piles of cash to have one or more lawyers in their staff.

[Version 1.0]

Re: Not very good

Criminals are criminals because they get caught, if you don't get caught then you just sail on. I suspect Kim would have gotten away with this if he's just transferred the money to an account in Bermuda. Large transfers to and from tax-free havens to so common.

[c1ue]

This guy was not the first team. No use of mules, no cutouts. Great he was caught - not indicative of the state of the criminal.

But very indicative of the state of security on the victim side - which is to say, none.