Two foreign nationals have been caught and sentenced for their part in an elaborate $5m email fraud scheme.
The charges that were laid against the pair revolved around conspiracy to commit wire fraud, three counts of wire fraud, conspiracy to cause intentional damage to a protected computer, and intentional damage to a protected computer, according to the Justice Department. FBI Washington Field Office investigated the case.
Two email and identity theft fraudsters sentenced
Both men, Franklin Ifeanyichukwu Okwonna and Ebuka Raphael Umeti pleaded guilty to the charges laid against them. Most recently, Okwonna pleaded guilty in the Eastern District of Virginia to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and aggravated identity theft for his role in the scheme.
Umeti was sentenced earlier this month, on August 27, and will now face 10 years in prison and ordered to pay nearly $5 million in restitution. Okwonna will serve five years and three months in prison, with another $5m in restitution to also be paid back by him.
The case centered around the period of 2016 and July 2021. The pair, both foreign nationals have been accused of working with a group of accomplices to promote a complex phishing scam email campaign that would siphon millions of dollars in illegal wire transfers.
The group masqueraded as a trusted source, such as a bank or registered entity, then a person would access the correspondence. This would then cause a host of malware, a type of vindictive and intrusive software on their device.
This would in turn allow the group to access sensitive information, bank details and several other secure facilities on devices to commit the fraud.
This exploitation of individuals and business bank details would result in $5m of damage and illicit transfers that would be split between the defendants and the group.
The Justice Department’s Office of International Affairs worked with “the FBI’s Legal Attaché Office in Nairobi, the U.S. Marshals Service, and Kenya’s Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions and Directorate of Criminal Investigation to secure the extradition of Umeti and Okwonna.”
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