The wire transfer was perfectly legal. The fraudulent communication wasn’t. The call was from Peru and the caller was in Peru.
The logic you’re using is lawyer logic of the worst kind i.e. the American kind. Traditional common law would never recognize such nonsense.
It’s none of the governments business that she was stupid and made a wire transfer. The dumb broad shoud have known better and the government should stick to stuff within U.S. borders.
What constitutes an illegal wire transfer? How can there even be a charge of wire fraud when the actual act of transferring the money is done via normal means?
Let me put it another way: if a person makes mail fraud and the target puts a stamp on the envelope and mails it, is it not mail fraud because the mail was legally sent?
More...
From the United States Department of Justice (9/10/2019): 281 Arrested Worldwide in Coordinated International Enforcement Operation Targeting Hundreds of Individuals in Business Email Compromise Schemes
Excerpt:
Federal authorities announced today a significant coordinated effort to disrupt Business Email Compromise (BEC) schemes that are designed to intercept and hijack wire transfers from businesses and individuals, including many senior citizens. Operation reWired, a coordinated law enforcement effort by the U.S. Department of Justice, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Department of the Treasury, U.S. Postal Inspection Service, and the U.S. Department of State, was conducted over a four-month period, resulting in 281 arrests in the United States and overseas, including 167 in Nigeria, 18 in Turkey and 15 in Ghana. Arrests were also made in France, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Malaysia, and the United Kingdom (UK). The operation also resulted in the seizure of nearly $3.7 million.[snip]
Foreign citizens perpetrate many BEC scams. Those individuals are often members of transnational criminal organizations, which originated in Nigeria but have spread throughout the world.
“The Department of Justice has increased efforts in taking aggressive enforcement action against fraudsters who are targeting American citizens and their businesses in business email compromise schemes and other cyber-enabled financial crimes,” said Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen. “In this latest four-month operation, we have arrested 74 people in the United States and 207 others have been arrested overseas for alleged financial fraud. The coordinated efforts with our domestic and international law enforcement partners around the world has made these most recent actions more successful.
[snip]
“The investigation of these crimes crossed international borders,” said Director Todd J. Brown of the U.S. Department of State’s Diplomatic Security Service (DSS). “Today’s charges are another successful example of our commitment to working together with both foreign colleagues abroad as well as local, state and federal law enforcement partners here at home in the pursuit of those who commit cyber-related financial crimes.”
[snip]
This operation serves as a model for international cooperation against specific threats that endanger the financial well-being of each member country’s residents.
So your argument collapses. International cooperation at both ends of the crime. This particular announcement doesn't mention Peru, the European Union, or the Netherlands (Aruba), but it clearly shows that international cooperation to combat wire fraud is legal and jurisdictional.
-PJ