Two Nigerians sentenced in the U.S. for $5m wire fraud

Thursday, September 5, 2024 -Two Nigerian nationals, Franklin Okwonna and Ebuka Umeti, have been sentenced to prison by a U.S. federal court for their involvement in a large-scale wire fraud scheme that defrauded victims of over $5m. 

The US Department of Justice announced this in a statement on Tuesday, September 3, 2024. 

Franklin Ifeanyichukwu Okwonna, 34, was sentenced on Tuesday in the Eastern District of Virginia 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 scheme that caused over $5 million in losses to multiple victims in the United States and elsewhere. 

Okwonna pleaded 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 Aug. 27 to 10 years in prison and ordered to pay nearly $5 million in restitution. 

Umeti was convicted by a federal jury 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 unauthorized wire transfers by sending victim businesses phishing emails. 

These emails falsely appeared as though they originated 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.

Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Nicole M. Argentieri, head of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, U.S. Attorney Jessica D. Aber for the Eastern District of Virginia, and Assistant Director in Charge David Sundberg of the FBI Washington Field Office made the announcement.

The FBI Washington Field Office investigated the case.

Senior Counsel Thomas S. Dougherty of the Criminal Division’s Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section (CCIPS) and Assistant U.S. Attorney Laura D. Withers for the Eastern District of Virginia prosecuted the case. CCIPS Senior Counsel Aarash Haghighat assisted in the investigation and indictment of the case. 

The Justice Department’s Office of International Affairs worked with the FBI’s Legal Attaché Office in Nairobi, the U.S. Marshals Service, and Kenya’s Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions and Directorate of Criminal Investigation to secure the extradition of Umeti and Okwonna.