A man in the US has been jailed for 25 years after using dating websites, email scams, and other online swindles to steal more than $9.5 million from companies and individuals.
Elvis Eghosa Ogiekpolor, 46, of Norcross, Georgia, was part of an "international network of online fraudsters and money launderers," US Attorney Ryan Buchanan said today.
Under Ogiekpolor's direction, cybercriminals opened more than 50 fraudulent business bank accounts in Georgia in the names of a dozen sham companies between October 2018 and August 2020. During this timeframe, Ogiekpolor further instructed at least eight "money mules" to open multiple phony bank accounts — for example, a "furniture LLC" even though Ogiekpolor never opened an actual store, "let alone sold any furniture," prosecutors [PDF] detailed in their court filings.
If any of these accounts were flagged for fraud or other suspicious activity, Ogiekpolor told his mules to simply open new ones at different banks, we're told.
Ogiekpolor then provided the bank account info to other co-conspirators to receive the proceeds from multiple romance frauds, business email compromise (BEC) scams, and other forms of fraud. According to the Justice Department, these digital crimes hurt "dozens" of victims in America and other countries, and multiple businesses.
Thirteen romance fraud victims testified at Ogiekpolor's trial and told the jury about meeting men online, communicating with them for several months without ever meeting in person while the men claimed to want to start a new life with the victims — just as soon as the men, ahem, resolved some major financial issue that required marks to send in thousands of dollars.
An affidavit by FBI ..
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