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Former U.S. Air Force members Chijioke Timothy Odimegwu and Harafat Mogaji were sentenced in federal court for a multiyear business email compromise scheme conducted while they were stationed at Dover Air Force Base, Delaware. The pair used phishing to obtain employee credentials, spoofed business-partner email addresses, and hijacked legitimate email threads to impersonate vendors and redirect corporate payments into accounts controlled by accomplices in the United States and abroad.
Prosecutors said the conspiracy targeted at least 15 organizations over more than two years, successfully diverting more than $1.68 million from an Iowa City victim and more than $720,000 from an Ohio victim, while attempting additional fraudulent wire transfers nationwide. After pleading guilty in June to wire fraud, identity theft, and access-device-fraud offenses, Odimegwu received 111 months in prison and Mogaji received 78 months; both were ordered to pay restitution and will serve three years of supervised release after incarceration.
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Odimegwu was sentenced to 111 months in prison and ordered to pay $366,617.59 in restitution, while Mogaji received 78 months and $995,680.45 in restitution. Both were also ordered to complete three years of supervised release after incarceration.
Odimegwu and Mogaji pleaded guilty to wire fraud, identity theft, and access-device-fraud charges arising from the business email compromise operation.
Chijioke Timothy Odimegwu and Harafat Mogaji conducted a business email compromise scheme while stationed at Dover Air Force Base, using phishing, stolen email credentials, spoofed addresses, and compromised email threads to redirect payments. Prosecutors said the operation compromised at least 15 organizations and diverted more than $1.68 million from an Iowa victim and more than $720,000 from an Ohio victim.
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U.S. courts sentenced two Nigerian nationals for separate fraud operations that targeted victims through **business email compromise**, romance scams, and wire fraud. James Junior Aliyu received **90 months** in prison for his role in an international scheme that compromised business and personal email accounts, sent spoofed messages to reroute legitimate wire transfers, and stole about **$6 million** from victims since at least 2017. Prosecutors said Aliyu was arrested in Johannesburg in 2022, extradited to the United States, ordered to forfeit **$1.2 million** and pay **$2.4 million** in restitution, and is expected to be removed from the country after serving his sentence; co-conspirators Kosi Goodness Simon-Ebo and Henry Onyedikachi Echefu also pleaded guilty. In a separate case, Saheed Sunday Owolabi was sentenced to **15 years** in federal prison after prosecutors showed he used fake online identities to run romance scams, steal money and personal information, and launder proceeds through victim bank accounts. Authorities said the operation moved more than **$1.5 million** to Nigeria and included a real-estate wire fraud in which forged emails redirected home-sale funds to accounts controlled by the conspirators. Trial evidence included chat logs showing Owolabi unknowingly attempted to scam another fraudster, helping establish his central role in a scheme that U.S. officials said caused substantial financial hardship to victims across the country.
Jun 29, 2026
U.S. federal court in Boston sentenced **Matthew Abiodun Akande**, a 37-year-old Nigerian national living in Mexico, to **eight years in prison** for a multi-year scheme that compromised Massachusetts tax preparation firms and used stolen taxpayer data to file fraudulent U.S. tax returns. Prosecutors said Akande and co-conspirators used **phishing emails** posing as prospective clients to trick employees into installing **remote access trojan (RAT) malware**, including **Warzone RAT**, enabling theft of clients’ personally identifiable information (PII) and subsequent tax-refund fraud. Court records and DOJ statements said the group filed **1,000+ fraudulent returns** seeking **over $8.1 million** in refunds and obtained **more than $1.3 million**; Akande was also ordered to pay **$1,393,230 in restitution**. Akande was arrested at **Heathrow Airport** in October 2024, extradited to the U.S. in March 2025, and later pleaded guilty to **33 counts** including conspiracy to obtain unauthorized access to protected computers, wire fraud, theft of government money, and aggravated identity theft; proceeds were routed to U.S. bank accounts and partially transferred onward, including to recipients in Mexico.
Jun 29, 2026
U.S. authorities secured guilty pleas in two separate cyber-enabled criminal cases: a Ghana-based fraud ring that stole more than **$100 million** via **business email compromise (BEC)** and romance scams, and a **Phobos** ransomware administrator tied to a global extortion operation. The cases highlight parallel monetization paths—social engineering and payment redirection in BEC/romance schemes versus data encryption and extortion in ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS)—and both involve international arrests/extraditions to the United States. In the fraud case, **Derrick Van Yeboah** (40) pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and agreed to pay **over $10 million** in restitution for his role in a Ghana-based operation that targeted U.S. victims from 2016 to May 2023, using spoofed emails to impersonate customers/employees and laundering proceeds through U.S. intermediaries before sending funds to coordinators in West Africa. Separately, **Evgenii Ptitsyn** (43) pleaded guilty to wire fraud conspiracy for helping develop, sell, distribute, and operate the **Phobos** ransomware platform, which the U.S. DoJ says hit **1,000+** entities and extorted **$16+ million**; he was arrested in South Korea in 2024, extradited to the U.S., and faces up to **20 years** in prison, with sentencing scheduled for July 15.
Jun 29, 2026