The Lithuanian Criminal Police Bureau announced that the crime was uncovered in cooperation with American multinational e-commerce giant Amazon and cryptocurrency exchange Binance. It transpired that a Lithuanian citizen identified as D. R. created a group on social platform Telegram, where together with accomplices he would agree to purchase goods from Amazon.
The investigation found that when the ordered goods reached the „customers“ they abused the return and refund policy by claiming that the goods never arrived, or that they received just an empty box. Hence money paid for purchases was returned to buyers.
According to the police, the man was detained in Vilnius. Searches were carried out at his address and at homes of suspected accomplices and nearly EUR 5 million in cryptocurrency and over EUR 700,000 in cash was seized. Two supervision measures were applied for the suspect.
A pre-trial investigation was opened into swindling and laundering of crime-related property. So far allegations have been made against two individuals.
Head of the Lithuanian Criminal Police Bureau, Arūnas Maskoliūnas, says the fraud scheme is unprecedented and the first in Lithuania when a commerce company is scammed out of such a large amount of money.
