Federal authorities announced Monday that they had "disrupted" what they call "Business Email Compromise" schemes, which involve a malicious actor sending a phishing email and somehow convincing employees with access to a company’s financial credentials to transfer money fraudulently. The FBI added that $2.4 million dollars was seized, while $14 million in "fraudulent wire transfers" was recovered.

Seventy-four people were arrested worldwide, including 42 in the United States, 29 in Nigeria, and three others in Canada, Mauritius, and Poland.

"Fraudsters can rob people of their life's savings in a matter of minutes," Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in a statement. "These are malicious and morally repugnant crimes. The Department of Justice has taken aggressive action against fraudsters in recent months, conducting the largest sweep of fraud against American seniors in history back in February."

The Department of Justice did not immediately provide a full list of those arrested, or the criminal complaints, but it said that, "since the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) began formally keeping track of BEC and its variant, email account compromise (EAC), there has been a loss of over $3.7 billion reported to the IC3."

Adeyemi Odufuye, aka "Micky Bricks," was one of the named defendants. He was charged with fraud and other allegations in a plan that involved an "attempted loss to victims of approximately $2.6 million."

In January 2018, Odufuye pleaded guilty to two charges, admitting that he conspired with two other people to send emails "from outside the United States addressed to executives and officers at businesses in the United States... made to appear to be sent from the legitimate email address of the CEO or other executive from the business. In reality, as Odufuye well knew, the emails were sent by him or a co-conspirator without the knowledge, permission, or consent of the purported sender. The defendant sent the emails with the intent of having the recipients send or wire money to bank accounts used, accessed, or controlled by others in furtherance of the conspiracy."