The apex cricket board International Cricket Council (ICC) has become a victim of cyber crime. In multiple wire transfers, ICC lost a huge sum of 2.5 million US dollars (Rs 20,24,87,500 as per current exchange rates). The alleged scam took place in 2022 and originated from USA.
ICC fell victim to most common mode of online scam like any other common man. The fraudsters used Business Email Compromise (BEC).
In simple words, the fraudsters used a familiar email id to a vendor to which ICC had made wire transfers to before. However, the fraudsters made negligible changes to the email address which led to the wire transfers that could not be identified before.
Apparently, the wire transfers to the said email id were made not once or twice but four times. The Dubai office had no notion of the fraud until January 19.
The ICC is yet to make an official statement about the issue. The board has reported the fraud to USA law-enforcement agencies.
As per FBI, BEC commonly involve "spoofing of a legitimate, known e-mail address or the use of the a 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."
This is a massive blow to the ICC as the huge amount of money lost to the fraudsters could have been beneficial for associate nations.
'I cannot imagine it has happened in the ICC," a member from Europe expressed his shock as associate boards with ODI status would usually get a grant of 500,000 to 100,000 dollars on annual basis.
