Cricket governing body ICC loses $2.5 million in online scam: Report

The global governing body of cricket, the International Cricket Council (ICC), reportedly lost nearly $2.5 million in online scam last year. The incident of phishing, which originated in the US, took place last year.

As per reports, the ICC was repeatedly cheated by the scamster not once, not twice, but four times. Surprisingly, the authorities at the ICC's Dubai office did not have a clue that they were being cheated until Thursday.

It is reported that the scamster from the US acted as a vendor of the ICC and emailed the cricket body's CFO for a payment from an email id that was apparently similar to the ICC.


The loss of $2.5 million is significant, as it is equivalent to four times the grant an Associate member with ODI status earns every year from the ICC. An ICC associate nation earns $500,000 to $1 million per year from ICC grants.

As per the report, the ICC is conducting a probe about the incident and has reported it to law enforcement agencies in the US. However, the exact manner in which the scam took place is not yet known.

"It is not yet known exactly what route the fraudsters took to get the money transferred from the ICC account—whether they got in touch directly with someone at the head office in Dubai, or had targeted an ICC vendor or consultant.

"It is also not confirmed whether the transaction was done in one single payment or there were multiple wire transfers."

Phishing is an attempt by cybercriminals posing as legitimate institutions, usually via email, to obtain sensitive information from targeted individuals. This is one of the most common scams happening around the world.

(Inputs from PTI)