VILNIUS, Lithuania (AP) \u2014 A Lithuanian businessman suspected of tricking more than $100 million out of Google and Facebook in an elaborate cybercrime case should be extradited to the United States, a local court ruled Friday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Lithuanian Court of Appeal in Vilnius ruled that Evaldas Rimasauskas must be handed over to the U.S., where he will be tried for wire fraud, money laundering and aggravated identity theft. He allegedly posed as one of the companies\u2019 suppliers, an Asian computer hardware manufacturer, and tricked them into accepting fraudulent invoices. Google earlier said it had detected the fraud and alerted authorities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rimasauskas has denied the charges. If convicted, he could face a lengthy prison sentence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cLithuania has a bilateral extradition agreement with the U.S. and this case meets all criteria,\u201d judge Algimantas Valantinas told reporters. \u201cThe United States has launched an investigation into this crime, so the request to hand over this citizen of Lithuania was legitimate and motivated.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rimasauskas\u2019 lawyer, Linas Kuprusevicius, said his client \u201ccannot expect a fair and impartial trial in the United States,\u201d and claimed the extradition request lacked key information, but the court dismissed these statements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Friday\u2019s decision is final. A date for the handover will be announced later this month.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A Lithuanian businessman suspected of tricking more than $100 million out of Google and Facebook in an elaborate cybercrime case should be extradited to the United States, a local court ruled Friday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":39349,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":13,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[106,31,3584,33],"tags":[],"coauthors":[1304],"class_list":["post-21553","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-brief","category-home","category-industry","category-newsletters"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"XD4WWXJRCZBBVHMZCTOGXEFZKA","arc_canonical_url":"\/industry\/2017\/08\/11\/lithuanian-court-oks-extradition-in-us-phishing-case\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n