Three Nigerian men have been indicted on charges related to wire fraud and money laundering in connection with a business email compromise (BEC) scam that took more than $6m from victims.
Kosi Goodness Simon-Ebo was extradited from Canada to the US to face charges. Simon-Ebo and Henry Onyedikachi Echefu are charged with wire fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering. James Junior Aliyu is also accused of directly laundering money.
The trio worked with co-conspirators in Maryland to break into business email accounts between February 2016 and at least July 2017.
Prosecutors said they used the accounts to trick people into fraudulent transactions by sending false wiring instructions to victims’ email accounts from spoofed emails to deceive them into sending money to bank accounts controlled by the perpetrators.
The charges that apply to all three men have maximum prison sentences of 20 years. Aliyu also faces an additional maximum sentence of 20 years for the money laundering charge. The FBI has identified BEC cases as a priority for federal law enforcement, with the scams estimated to have led to losses of up to $43bn.
Recent BEC indictments have included charges against four California men in December, while a Nigerian influencer known as Hushpuppi was sentenced to 11 years in US prison in November 2021.
