A 46-year-old man in the U.S. has been sentenced to 25 years’ imprisonment after being found guilty of laundering over $9.5 million by conducting cyber-enabled financial fraud.
Elvis Eghosa Ogiekpolor of Norcross, Georgia, operated a money laundering network that opened at least 50 business bank accounts for illicitly receiving funds from unsuspecting individuals and businesses after falling victim to romance frauds and business email compromise (BEC) scams.
Ogiekpolor was charged by a federal grand jury in February 2022 with one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering and 15 counts of substantive money laundering. The scheme was operational from October 2018 to August 2020.
According to the U.S. Justice Department (DoJ), Ogiekpolor enlisted the help of eight “money mules” to open the phony bank accounts under the names of non-existent companies, which were used to stash the proceeds from their criminal activities.
These included creating fictitious personas on online dating sites to initiate conversations with potential targets, before tricking them into wiring funds directly into one of the sham accounts or mailing the cash to the money mules.
Once the fraud proceeds posted to his accounts, Ogiekpolor laundered the funds, including wiring hundreds of thousands of dollars to overseas accounts, and withdrawing substantial amounts in cash and cashier’s checks. The scam targeted retired widows or widowers.
BEC attacks are usually executed by sending spear-phishing email messages that claim to be from a known source that has ongoing contracts with the targeted victims and asking them to transfer funds to a different account under the cybercriminals’ control.
Five of Ogiekpolor’s co-conspirators were also convicted, all of whom have been accused of conspiracy to commit money laundering and have since pleaded guilty to the crime.
Image Credits : Bank Info Security
Comments