Business Email Compromise (BEC) , Fraud Management & Cybercrime , Fraud Risk Management
Prosecutors: Crime Operation Extorted $11 Million Akshaya Asokan (asokan_akshaya) • February 18, 2021A Nigerian national has been sentenced to 10 years in prison after pleading guilty to taking part in a business email compromise operation that extorted $11 million from its victims, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
See Also: Top 50 Security Threats
Obinwanne Okeke, 33, was an entrepreneur who ran a group of companies called Invictus Group. From 2015 to 2019, he and his co-conspirators obtained the credentials of hundreds of victims, prosecutors say.
One of the victims was Unatrac Holding Ltd., the U.K. affiliate of U.S. heavy equipment manufacturer Caterpillar, which was defrauded of almost $11 million, accounting for the bulk of the scheme's proceeds.
The investigation also found Okeke and other conspirators had swindled the Red Wing Shoe Company out of about $108,000 in early 2018.
The FBI arrested Okeke in August 2019 on charges of conspiracy to commit computer and wire fraud. He pleaded guilty in June 2020 (see: Nigerian Entrepreneur Pleads Guilty in $11 Million BEC Scam).
Attack on Unatrac
On April 1, 2018, the CFO at Unatrac received a phishing email containing a li ..
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