42 Alleged Fraudsters Arrested in the United States
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 Wire Wire, a coordinated law enforcement effort by the U.S.
Department of Justice, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Department of
the Treasury and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, was conducted over a six
month period, culminating in over two weeks of intensified law enforcement
activity resulting in 74 arrests in the United States and overseas, including
29 in Nigeria, and three in Canada, Mauritius and Poland. The operation also resulted in the seizure of
nearly $2.4 million, and the disruption and recovery of approximately $14
million in fraudulent wire transfers.
BEC, also known as “cyber-enabled financial fraud,” is a
sophisticated scam often targeting employees with access to company finances
and businesses working with foreign suppliers and/or businesses that regularly
perform wire transfer payments. The same
criminal organizations that perpetrate BEC also exploit individual victims,
often real estate purchasers, the elderly, and others, by convincing them to
make wire transfers to bank accounts controlled by the criminals. This is often
accomplished by impersonating a key employee or business partner after
obtaining access to that person’s email account or sometimes done through
romance and lottery scams. BEC scams may
involve fraudulent requests for checks rather than wire transfers; they may
target sensitive information such as personally identifiable information (PII)
or employee tax records instead of, or in addition to, money; and they may not
involve an actual “compromise” of an email account or computer network. 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.
“Fraudsters can rob people of their life's savings in a
matter of minutes,” said Attorney General Sessions. “These are malicious and
morally repugnant crimes. The Department of Justice has taken aggressive action
against fraudsters in recent months, conducting the largest sweep of fraud
against American seniors in history back in February. Now, in this operation
alone, we have arrested 42 people in the United States and 29 others have been
arrested in Nigeria for alleged financial fraud. And so I want to thank the
FBI, nearly a dozen U.S. Attorneys' Offices, the Secret Service, Postal
Inspection Services, Homeland Security Investigations, the Treasury Department,
our partners in Nigeria, Poland, Canada, Mauritius, Indonesia, and Malaysia,
and our state and local law enforcement partners for all of their hard work. We
will continue to go on offense against fraudsters so that the American people
can have safety and peace of mind.”
“This operation demonstrates the FBI’s commitment to disrupt
and dismantle criminal enterprises that target American citizens and their
businesses,” said FBI Director Christopher A. Wray. “We will continue to work
together with our law enforcement partners around the world to end these fraud
schemes and protect the hard-earned assets of our citizens. The public we serve
deserves nothing less.”
“The Secret Service remains committed to aggressively
investigating and pursuing those responsible for cyber-enabled financial
crimes,” said U.S. Secret Service Director Randolph “Tex” Alles. “Although the explosive expansion of the
cyber domain has forced us to develop innovative ways of conducting these types
of investigations, our proven model remains the same.”
“FinCEN has been a leader in the fight against BEC and other
cyber-enabled crime,” said FinCEN Director Kenneth A. Blanco. “Since 2014,
working with our domestic and international partners, our Rapid Response
Program has helped recover over $350 million stolen from innocent
Americans. We must continue to be
smarter, quicker, and better than the criminals that we face every day. Today’s action is a victory, but it will take
vigilance, time, and resources to take this fight into the future. In defense of the victims of these crimes, we
are ready for the challenge.”
“The U.S. Postal Inspection Service has a long history of
successfully investigating complex fraud and corruption cases,” said Chief
Postal Inspector Guy Cottrell. “We are proud to work alongside our fellow law
enforcement partners in major efforts, such as Operation Wire Wire, to target
those individuals who take advantage of the American public for illegal
profits. Anyone who engages in deceptive practices like this should know they
will not go undetected and will be held accountable, regardless of where they are.
Postal Inspectors will continue to work tirelessly to protect our customers
from fraud.”
A number of cases involved international criminal
organizations that defrauded small to large sized businesses, while others
involved individual victims who transferred high dollar funds or sensitive
records in the course of business. The
devastating effects these cases have on victims and victim companies, affect
not only the individual business but also the global economy. Since the Internet Crime Complaint Center
(IC3) began keeping track of BEC and its variant, Email Account Compromise
(EAC), as a complaint category, there has been a loss of over $3.7 billion
reported to the IC3. BEC and EAC is a
prevalent scam and the Justice Department along with our partners will continue
to aggressively pursue and prosecute the perpetrators, including money mules,
regardless of where they are located.
Money mules may be witting or unwitting accomplices who
receive ill-gotten funds from the victims and then transfer the funds as
directed by the fraudsters. The money is
wired or sent by check to the money mule who then deposits it in his or her own
bank account. Usually the mules keep a
fraction for “their trouble” and then wire the money as directed by the
fraudster. The fraudsters enlist and
manipulate the money mules through romance scams or “work-at-home” scams.
Starting in January 2018, this coordinated enforcement
action targeted hundreds of BEC scammers.
In addition, law enforcement agents executed over 51 domestic actions
including search warrants, money mule warning letters, and asset seizure
warrants totaling nearly $1 million.
Local and state law enforcement partners on FBI task forces across the
country, with the assistance of multiple District Attorney’s Offices, charged
15 alleged money mules for their role in defrauding victims. These money mules were employed by the
fraudsters to launder their ill-gotten gains by draining the funds into other
accounts that are difficult to trace.
Among those arrested on federal charges in BEC schemes
include:
Following an
investigation by the FBI and the U.S. Secret Service, 23 individuals were
charged in the Southern District of Florida with laundering at least $10
million from proceeds of BEC scams, including eight people charged in an
indictment unsealed last week in Miami. These eight defendants are alleged to
have conspired to launder proceeds from numerous BEC scams, totaling at least
approximately $5 million, including approximately $1.4 million from a victim
corporation in Seattle, as well as various title companies and a law firm.
Following an
investigation led by the FBI with the assistance of the IRS Criminal
Investigation, Gloria Okolie and Paul Aisosa, both Nigerian nationals residing
in Dallas, Texas, were charged in an indictment filed on June 6 in the Southern
District of Georgia. According to the
indictment, they are alleged to have victimized a real estate closing attorney
by sending the lawyer a spoofing email posing as the seller and requesting that
proceeds of a real estate sale in the amount of $246,000 be wired to Okolie’s
account. They are charged with
laundering approximately $665,000 in illicit funds. The attorney experienced $130,000 in losses
after the bank was notified of the fraud and froze $116,000.
Adeyemi Odufuye
aka “Micky,” “Micky Bricks,” “Yemi,” “GMB,” “Bawz” and “Jefe,” 32, and Stanley
Hugochukwu Nwoke, aka Stanley Banks,” “Banks,” “Hugo Banks,” “Banky,” and “Jose
Calderon,” 27, were charged in a seven-count indictment in the District of
Connecticut in a BEC scheme involving an attempted loss to victims of
approximately $2.6 million, including at least $440,000 in actual losses to one
victim in Connecticut. A third
co-conspirator Olumuyiwa Yahtrip Adejumo, aka “Ade,” “Slimwaco,” “Waco,” “Waco
Jamon,” “Hade,” and “Hadey,” 32, of Toledo, Ohio, pleaded guilty on April 20 to
one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud.
Odufuye was extradited from the United Kingdom to the United States and
on Jan. 3, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and
one count of aggravated identity theft. Nwoke was extradited to the United
States from Mauritius on May 25, marking the first extradition in over 15 years
from Mauritius. His case is pending.
Richard Emem
Jackson, aka Auwire, 23, of Lagos, Nigeria, was charged in an indictment filed
on May 17 in the District of Massachusetts with two counts of unlawful
possession of a means of identification as part of a larger fraud scheme.
According to the indictment, on two occasions in 2017, Jackson is alleged to
have possessed the identifications of two victims with the intent to commit
wire fraud conspiracy. In another case
being prosecuted in the District of Massachusetts, a 25-year-old Fort
Lauderdale, Florida man was indicted in federal court in Boston on June 6 on
one count of money laundering conspiracy. According to the indictment, the
individual was part of a conspiracy that engaged in wire fraud. It is alleged
that in early 2018, the defendant’s co-conspirators gained access to email
accounts belonging to a Massachusetts real estate attorney and sent emails to recipients
in Massachusetts that “spoofed” the real estate attorney’s account in an
attempt to cause the email recipient to transfer nearly $500,000, which was
intended to be used for payment in connection with a real estate transaction,
to a shell account belonging to a money mule recruited and controlled by the
defendant.
The BEC scam is related to other forms of fraud such as:
“Romance scams,”
which lull victims to believe that their online paramour needs funds for an
international business transaction, a U.S. visit or some other purpose;
“Employment
opportunities scams,” which recruits prospective employees for work-from-home
employment opportunities where employees are required to provide their PII as
new “hires” and then are significantly overpaid by check whereby the employees
wire the overpayment to the employers’ bank;
“Fraudulent online
vehicle sales scams,” which convinces intended buyers to purchase prepaid gift
cards in the amount of the agreed upon sale price and are instructed to share
the prepaid card codes with the “sellers” who ignore future communications and
do not deliver the goods;
“Rental scams”
occur when renters forward a check in excess of the agreed upon deposit for the
rental property to the victims and request the remainder be returned via wire
or check and back out of the rental agreements and ask for a refund; and
“Lottery scams,”
which involves persons randomly contacting email addresses advising them they
have been selected as the winner of an international lottery.
The cases were investigated by the FBI, U.S. Secret Service,
U.S. Postal Inspection Service, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s
Homeland Security Investigations, the U.S. Department of the Treasury Financial
Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) and IRS Criminal Investigation. U.S. Attorney’s Offices in the Districts of
Central California, Connecticut, Eastern Virginia, Massachusetts, Nebraska, New
Jersey, Southern Florida, Southern Georgia, Southern Texas, Eastern
Pennsylvania, Eastern Washington, Western Pennsylvania, Western Tennessee,
Western Washington, Utah, and elsewhere have ongoing investigations some of
which have resulted in arrests in Nigeria.
The Justice Department’s Computer Crime and Intellectual Property
Section, Money Laundering and Asset Recovery Section and Office of
International Affairs of the Criminal Division provided assistance. District
Attorney’s Offices of Caddo Parrish in Shreveport, Louisiana; Harris County,
Texas and Los Angeles are handling state prosecutions. Additionally, private
sector partners and the Nigerian Economic and Financial Crimes Commission,
Canadian law enforcement including the Toronto Police Service, the Mauritian
Attorney-General and the Commissioner of Police, Polish Police Central Bureau of
Investigation, Indonesian National Police Cyber Crimes Unit, and the Royal
Malaysia Police provided significant assistance.
This operation, which was funded and coordinated by the FBI,
serves as a model for international cooperation against specific threats that
endanger the financial well-being of each member country’s residents. Attorney General Sessions expressed gratitude
for the outstanding efforts of the participating countries, including law
enforcement actions that were coordinated and executed by the Economic and
Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) in Nigeria to curb business email compromise
schemes that defraud businesses and individuals alike.
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