Nigerian scams $27 million from Citibank

Anyone who receives an email from Nigeria almost instantly recognizes it to be a phishing scam designed to get your bank account info. But Citibank fell victim to a slightly altered version of the classic email scam and paid out $27 million to multiple accounts. If it wasn't for the other banks noticing irregularities then the scam would've been successful.

No wonder there's a finicial crisis right now, the top banks can't even figure out if they're being scammed. Reuters

NEW YORK, Feb 20 (Reuters) - A Nigerian citizen was indicted on charges of scheming to steal about $27.2 million from a National Bank of Ethiopia account at Citibank N.A., a unit of Citigroup (C.N), U.S. officials said on Friday.

The accused man, Paul Gabriel Amos, was arrested in Los Angeles in January and pleaded not guilty in U.S. District Court in Manhattan on Friday to a charge of conspiracy to commit bank fraud and wire fraud.

From September through November of last year, Amos and unidentified co-conspirators sent fake signed documents to Citibank appearing to match signatures of officials at National Bank of Ethiopia (NBE), the country's central bank, U.S. prosecutors and the FBI said in a statement.[...]

U.S. prosecutors said that between Oct. 2 and Oct. 16 last year, Amos and co-conspirators caused Citibank to make a total of about 24 wire transfers amounting to almost $27.2 million to various accounts they controlled in Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Australia, China, Cyprus and the United States.

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