US Secret Service indicts three Nigerians for $6 million fraud
US Secret Service indicts three Nigerians for $6 million fraud
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!The US Secret Service has charged three men from Nigeria in connection with a $6 million alleged fraud.
The three Nigerians, identified as James Junior Aliyu aka “Old Soldier,” 28, Kosi Goodness Simon-Ebo, 29, and Henry Onyedikachi Echefu, 31, who all reside in South Africa, were charged with “conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering charges related to a business email compromise (“BEC”) scheme to the tune of $6 million,” the US Justice Department said in a statement on Thursday.
According to the statement, a federal grand jury indicted the trio on June 24, 2019, and the indictment was released on July 6, 2022, following the defendants’ detention abroad.
“The indictment was announced by Erek L. Barron, United States Attorney for the District of Maryland, Special Agent in Charge James C. Harris of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Baltimore; and Special Agent in Charge Matthew R. Stohler of the U.S. Secret Service – Washington Field Office,” the statement reads.
“According to the seven-count indictment, from February 2016 until at least July 2017, the defendants conspired with others to perpetrate a BEC scheme,” it said.
“Specifically, the indictment alleges that the defendants and their co-conspirators, including co-conspirators residing in Maryland, gained unauthorized access to email accounts associated with individuals and businesses targeted by the conspirators.
“The co-conspirators then allegedly sent false wiring instructions to the victims’ email accounts from “spoofed” emails, which are emails with forged sender addresses, to deceive the victims into sending money to bank accounts controlled by perpetrators of the scheme, called “drop accounts.”
“The indictment also alleges that the defendants conspired to commit money laundering by disbursing the fraudulently obtained funds in the drop accounts to other accounts by initiating account transfers, withdrawing cash, obtaining cashier’s checks and by writing checks to other individuals and entities, to hide the true ownership and the source of those assets.
“For example, defendant Aliyu is alleged to have made a $350,000 wire transfer from one of the drop accounts in Maryland to an account he controlled in South Africa, knowing that the funds were the proceeds of a crime and that the transaction was designed to conceal the nature, source and ownership of those funds.
“Finally, the defendants are charged with wire fraud, related to the BEC scheme. Specifically, Simon-Ebo is charged in three wire fraud counts involving $6,343,533.10 in victim funds being wired to accounts controlled by conspirators.
“If convicted, the defendants each face a maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison for the wire fraud conspiracy, for the money laundering conspiracy, and for each count of wire fraud.”
