Federal authorities have obtained a court order forfeiting about $375,000 connected to a 2022 business email scam targeting an Iowa company.
The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Iowa issued the judgment Tuesday. Prosecutors said investigators traced the money to a Wells Fargo account held by Manuel and Ibrahim Hazim.
In the scam, someone allegedly impersonated the company’s vendors and persuaded an employee to send payments to an account controlled by the fraudster. The company believed the requests were for legitimate invoices and transferred more than $800,000 in mid-2022. The money was then moved through several accounts to make it harder to track.
Authorities seized $372,583.77 from the Hazims’ account. Checks deposited there referred to “Mack Truck,” “procurement” and “payment,” but investigators found no legitimate business activity connected to the deposits. The Hazims claimed they innocently owned the funds and said they came from a currency-exchange arrangement, but they did not submit the required sworn statements.
U.S. Attorney Leif Olson said investigators found no evidence the Hazims owned or sold a Mack Truck or had conducted another legitimate transaction with the person who deposited the money.
Olson urged people and businesses to check email addresses carefully, verify payment-change requests in person or by phone, and report suspected scams to their bank, law enforcement or the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center. He said authorities would use available tools to identify scammers and recover stolen funds.
