A Nigerian national was sentenced on Tuesday to five years and three months in prison and ordered to pay nearly $5 million in restitution for participating in a computer hacking and business email compromise (BEC) scheme that caused over $5 million in losses to multiple victims in the United States and elsewhere.
Franklin Ifeanyichukwu Okwonna, 34, pled guilty on May 20 to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and aggravated identity theft for his role in the scheme.
Okwonna’s co-defendant, Nigerian national Ebuka Raphael Umeti, 35, was sentenced on August 27 to 10 years in prison and ordered to pay nearly $5 million in restitution.
A federal jury convicted Umeti on June 13 of 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 court documents and evidence presented at Umeti’s trial, between February 2016 and July 2021, Umeti, Okwonna, and their co-conspirators caused millions of dollars in unauthorised wire transfers by sending victim businesses phishing emails. These emails falsely appeared to originate from trusted sources, such as a bank or a vendor.
After the victim opened an attachment, their computers would be infected with malicious software or “malware” that allowed the defendants and their co-conspirators to gain unauthorized access to the victim’s computer systems and email accounts.
The defendants and their co-conspirators then exploited that access to obtain sensitive information, which they used to deceive individuals at the victim companies into executing wire transfers to accounts specified by the co-conspirators.
As a result of this scheme, the defendants and their co-conspirators caused or attempted to cause over $5 million in losses to the victim companies.
The FBI Washington Field Office investigated the case.
