Three Nigerian Nationals Indicted In US Over $6m Wire Fraud
Henry Onyedikachi Echefu, 31, Kosi Goodness Simon-Ebo, 29, and James Junior Aliyu, 28, are three Nigerian men who have been charged with participating in a $6 million business email compromise (BEC) fraud scheme in the US.
The suspects all reside in South Africa, allegedly banded together with some Maryland residents to gain “unauthorized access to email accounts associated with individuals and businesses,” according to a statement released by the US Department of Justice.
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“The defendants conspired with others to carry out a BEC scheme from February 2016 until at least July 2017, according to the seven-count indictment.
According to the indictment, it is specifically claimed that the defendants and their co-conspirators, including co-conspirators based in Maryland, obtained unauthorised access to email accounts linked to people and companies that the conspirators had targeted.
In order to trick the victims into sending money to “drop accounts,” or bank accounts controlled by the scheme’s perpetrators, the co-conspirators allegedly sent false wiring instructions to the victims’ email accounts from “spoofed” emails, or emails with forged sender addresses.
The indictment further claims that the defendants planned to engage in money laundering by transferring funds obtained through fraud from the drop accounts to other accounts, obtaining cashier’s checks, and writing checks to other people and organisations in order to conceal the real owners and sources of those assets, according to the statement.
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The first defendant, Simon-Ebo, was extradited to the US from Canada on Wednesday and is scheduled to make his court debut on Friday, according to the US Department of Justice.
The US provided information about the alleged crime, saying:
For instance, it is claimed that defendant Aliyu wired $350,000 from one of the Maryland drop accounts to an account he controlled in South Africa while being aware that the funds were the proceeds of crime and that the transaction was intended to hide their true nature, source, and owner. Simon-Ebo is accused of committing three counts of wire fraud involving the transfer of $6,343,533.10 from victim funds to accounts under the control of the conspirators.
If found guilty, the defendants face a maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison.
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