By John Ikani
Three Nigerian nationals have been charged with wire fraud and money laundering for their alleged involvement in a business email compromise (BEC) scheme that caused losses of more than $6 million.
The first defendant, Kosi Goodness Simon-Ebo, aged 29, has been extradited from Canada to the United States and is scheduled to appear before US Magistrate Judge Amjel Quereshi in the US District Court in Greenbelt on Friday, April 14, 2023.
The other two defendants, James Junior Aliyu, a/k/a “Old Soldier,” and “Ghost,” aged 28 and Henry Onyedikachi Echefu, aged 31, are Nigerian citizens residing in South Africa and remain outside of the United States.
According to court documents seen by Heritage Times (HT), the three are accused of conspiring with others to perpetrate a BEC scheme from February 2016 until at least July 2017.
The defendants and their co-conspirators allegedly gained unauthorized access to email accounts associated with individuals and businesses targeted by the scheme.
The co-conspirators then 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 writing checks to other individuals and entities to hide the true ownership and the source of those assets.
The defendants 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, if convicted.
Aliyu also faces a maximum of 20 years in federal prison for money laundering, if convicted. The case was investigated by Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Baltimore and the US Secret Service.
The US Attorney for the District of Maryland, Erek L. Barron, commended the investigators for their work in the investigation.
It is worthwhile to note that an indictment is not a finding of guilt, and the defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty at some later criminal proceedings.
