A gang worked with 7 insiders to defraud Amazon of millions of dollars

Yesterday, Amazon sued an international fraud ring that stole millions of dollars worth of goods from Amazon through a series of fraudulent tactics that involved buying items on Amazon and then seeking refunds without returning them.

Amazon said in the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Washington that the group, called REKK, advertised its refund service on social networking sites such as Reddit and Discord and communicated with "customers" on the instant messaging app Telegram.

The “customers” who wanted to get valuable goods such as MacBook Pro laptops and car tires for free were then charged a commission based on the value of the goods.

It is reported that this lawsuit not only sued REKK, but also sued nearly 30 people from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Greece, Lithuania and the Netherlands. These defendants are suspected of hacking into Amazon's internal systems and bribing Amazon employees to allow some employees to apply for refunds through the organization.

Amazon alleges in the lawsuit that the defendants’ scheme deceived Amazon into refunding orders that were not returned; but they did not return the items as promised and kept the items and the refunds Amazon issued.

The lawsuit lists more than a dozen fraudulent transactions carried out by the organization from June 2022 to May 2023. The goods included game consoles, smartphones, laptops, and even a 24K gold coin.

In addition, Amazon pointed out that at least seven former Amazon employees were involved in these transactions.

This year, consumers around the world spent $678 billion on Amazon, a huge number that makes it an important target for criminal gangs. Sometimes Amazon employees are involved in these crimes. In 2020, an Amazon India employee was accused of accepting a $100,000 bribe to provide specific merchants with advantages in selling goods on the website.

Amazon said it spent $1.2 billion and hired 15,000 people in 2022 to combat theft, fraud and abuse on its site .

Dharmesh Mehta, Amazon's vice president of seller services, wrote on LinkedIn that when fraud is discovered, Amazon uses a variety of measures to prevent it, including issuing warnings, closing accounts, and preventing individuals who engage in refund fraud from opening new accounts.

Amazon

Prosecution

Criminal gangs