A citizen of Nigeria, who was previously extradited from the United Kingdom, pled guilty on Thursday, June 29, to wire fraud conspiracy that targeted thousands of people around the world and attempted to scam victims of millions of dollars.
Chibundu Joseph Anuebunwa, 40, allegedly participated in the email scams with David Chukwuneke Adindu and Onyekachi Emmanuel Opara in a cybercrime that tricked thousands of business employees into wiring millions of dollars to overseas bank accounts by sending bogus emails that appeared to be legitimate, according to U.S. Attorney Damian Williams.
“This case should serve as a reminder to cyber criminals located around the globe that we will track them down and hold them responsible,” Williams said in a statement.
Anuebunwa, Opara, and Adindu allegedly participated in business email compromise (BEC) scams between 2014 and 2014. The trio sent emails to employees of various companies directing employees to transfer funds to specified bank accounts. The trio made the claims that the emails were sent from supervisors at those companies or from third-party vendors that did business with the companies.
But the emails were from accounts with a domain name that was very similar to the legitimate domain name or the metadata in the emails had been modified so that the emails appeared to be from legitimate email addresses, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
After victims accepted and followed the fraudulent wiring instructions, the transferred funds were quickly withdrawn or moved into different bank accounts.
Anuebunwa pled guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and could be sentenced to up to 20 years in prison. He is scheduled to be sentenced by U.S. District Judge Paul A. Crotty on Oct. 2. Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew Chan led the prosecution charge.
Adindu was previously sentenced to 41 months in prison and Opara was previously extradited from South Africa and sentenced to 60 months in prison.
The investigation was led by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and assisted by United Kingdom authorities and the Yahoo E-Crime Investigations Team. The case is being handled by the U.S. Department of Justice’s Complex Frauds and Cybercrime Unit.
