Nigerian Man, Olayinka Olaniyi Sentenced To Prison For Defrauding US Universities Of $6million

“These defendants used trickery to lure and exploit their unsuspecting victims, but they will now face the consequences of their scheme in federal prison.”

“A ‘phishing scam’ is the act of sending fraudulent emails that appear to come from legitimate enterprises for the purpose of tricking the recipients into providing personal information, including usernames and passwords.

“Olaniyi and Ibiwoye directed phishing emails to college and university employees. Once they had possession of employee logins and passwords, they were able to steal payroll deposits by changing the bank account into which the payroll was deposited. Also, while logged into the university system through the stolen logins and passwords, these defendants were able to gain access to employee W2 forms, which they used to file fraudulent tax returns. The attempted theft was over $6 million.

“The stolen funds were routed into U.S. bank accounts, and the evidence showed that access to these bank accounts was acquired through the use of romance scams, where fraudsters pose on dating sites and apps as potential partners to gain the trust of their victim. At some point, the fraudster will make a request to deposit money into their victim’s account and claim to need all of the account information, including their account number, routing number, passwords, and answers to security questions. In this case, all of that information was then used to funnel the proceeds of theft through those accounts and out of the country.”

“arrest criminals who believe they can hide out on the internet, protected by geographic boundaries, and prey on the American people and our institutions”.