Three Nigerian men are facing federal indictment in the U.S. over money laundering and wire fraud scheme with losses of more than $6 million.
One of them is being extradited from Canada to the U.S. to face a federal indictment on Friday, April 14 in a U.S. District Court in Greenbelt, MD.
A federal grand jury returned an indictment charging the three Nigerians identified as 29-year-old Kosi Goodness Simon-Ebo, 28-year-old James Junior Aliyu, and 31-year-old Henry Onyedikachi Echefu.
The three Nigerians are being charged with "conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering and firewire fraud and money laundering charges related to a business email compromise 'BEC' scheme with losses of more than $6 million."
According to the seven-count indictment, from February 2016 to at least July 2017, all three men conspired with others to perform the BEC scheme, Fox News reports.
The three men and co-conspirators, including some from Maryland, gained unauthorised access to email accounts that were associated with individuals and businesses, the indictment detailed.
The co-conspirators allegedly sent false instructions to the victims' email accounts from fake emails, the indictment said, which were forged with sender addresses, to deceive them into sending money to bank accounts controlled by the perpetrators.
The accounts controlled by the perpetrators are called drop accounts.
"The indictment also alleges that the defendants conspired to commit money laundering by disbursing the fraudulently obtained funds in the drop accounts to other accounts by initiating account transfers, withdrawing cash, obtaining cashier’s checks and by writing checks to other individuals and entities, to hide the true ownership and the source of those assets," the indictment detailed.
According to the indictment, Aliyu is alleged to have made a wire transfer from one of the drop accounts to an account he controlled in South Africa.
All three men are charged with wire fraud, the indictment said, and Simon-Ebo is charged with three wire fraud counts involving $6,343,533.10 in victim funds being wired to accounts controlled by conspirators.
If they are convicted, each of them faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison for the wire fraud conspiracy, for the money laundering conspiracy, and for each count of wire fraud.
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