The IC3 also issued a Public Service Announcement (PSA) in September 2019 warning that BEC scams are continuing to grow every year, with victim complaints with a total exposed dollar loss of more than $ 26 billion between June 2016 and July 2019, and a 100% rise in the identified global exposed losses from May 2018 to July 2019.
Even though quite hard to believe, these numbers are backed by the publicly reported losses with a Toyota Group subsidiary announcing in September 2019 that it was the victim of a BEC scam with an expected financial loss of over $ 37 million.
Another BEC attack affecting Nikkei, one of the largest media groups in the world, costing the company around $ 29 million in October 2019.
Also in October 2019, 281 people were arrested in the US and other countries as part of Operation reWired, a globally-coordinated law enforcement to disrupt Business Email Compromise (BEC) schemes.
A previous and similar effort dubbed Operation Wire Wire, announced in June 2018, was the first such enforcement action designed to go after hundreds of BEC scammers and it led to the arrest of 74 individual, as well as the disruption and recovery of roughly $ 14 million in fraudulent wire transfers.
The FBI recommends BEC scam victims to file a complaint regardless of the amount they lost at BEC.IC3.gov.
