Feds Arrest 11 On Money Laundering Charges

HOUSTON, TX — Eleven individuals in the Harris County area have been arrested in a large-scale, international cyber-crime sweep targeting fraudulent Business Email Compromise (BEC) transactions.

In the Houston area, Operation Wire Wire involved multiple law enforcement partners including the FBI Houston Cyber Task Force, the Houston Police Department, NASA, the United States Postal Inspection Service, and the Harris County District Attorney’s Office.

The eleven suspects arrested locally in Operation Wire Wire face money laundering charges in the State of Texas. The FBI Houston Cyber Task Force claimed the first domestic arrest in Operation Wire Wire.

The international targeted sweep ran from January to early June 2018 and culminated in two weeks of focused law enforcement activity in the United States and Nigeria.

Business email compromise schemes, also known as CEO impersonation schemes, are sophisticated scams targeting businesses working with foreign suppliers and other businesses that regularly perform wire transfer payments.

The Email Account Compromise (EAC) component of BEC targets individuals who perform wire transfer payments. Foreign citizens who perpetrate BEC scams are often members of transnational criminal organizations which originated in Nigeria but have spread throughout the world.

“The devastating effects of BEC and EAC scams on domestic victims impact not only the individual but the global economy. Scammers have stolen millions of dollars from individual victims and honest, enterprising businesses around the world,” stated FBI Houston Special Agent in Charge (SAC) Perrye K. Turner.

In 2017, the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) received complaints from 1,258 victims within the state of Texas with losses of more than $53 million. “To avoid becoming a victim of BEC and EAC scams, verify the authenticity of any email you receive, especially those that request you to send money through a wire transfer,” Turner said.

The FBI encourages all individuals who believe they have fallen victim to a scam to report it to the FBI using www.IC3.gov.

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