Three Nigerian men charged for allegedly defrauding entities, including US universities
The three, Olabanji Egbinola, Oludayo Kolawole John Adeagbo, and Donald Ikenna Echeazu are facing charges of wire fraud conspiracy, money laundering conspiracy, and aggravated identity theft.
Three Nigerian men have been charged in the US, for their alleged involvement in a multimillion-dollar cyber-enabled business email compromise (BEC) fraud schemes targeted at individuals and entities, including universities in North Carolina, Texas, and Virginia.
The three, Olabanji Egbinola, Oludayo Kolawole John Adeagbo, and Donald Ikenna Echeazu are facing charges of wire fraud conspiracy, money laundering conspiracy, and aggravated identity theft.
“The scams allegedly perpetrated by the defendants and their co-conspirators targeted unsuspecting victims including universities in North Carolina, Texas, and Virginia, and attempted to cause more than $5 million in losses,” a US Justice Department statement dated August 10, 2022, said.
They were arrested on April 23, 2020, by UK authorities at the request of the United States and ordered extradited on Sept. 3, 2021.
However, they appealed against their extradition, which was then rejected by the UK High Court on July 12, 2022.
The trio may face up to 20 years each in prison if convicted.
Western District of North Carolina
Oludayo Kolawole John Adeagbo aka John Edwards a Nigerian citizen and UK resident, and Donald Ikenna Echeazu aka Donald Smith, a dual UK and Nigerian citizen, are charged for defrauding a North Carolina university (the University) of more than $1.9 million via a business email compromise scheme.
The indictment was returned by a federal grand jury in the Western District of North Carolina on April 17, 2019, and was unsealed yesterday following Echeazu’s initial appearance in federal court in Charlotte.
According to allegations contained in the indictment, from Aug. 30, 2016, to Jan. 12, 2017, Adeagbo and Echeazu conspired with other individuals to obtain information about significant construction projects occurring throughout the United States, including an ongoing multi-million-dollar project at the victim University.
To execute the scheme, the defendants allegedly registered a domain name similar to that of the legitimate construction company in charge of the University’s project and created an email address that closely resembled that of an employee of the construction company.
Using the fake email address, the co-conspirators allegedly deceived and directed the University to wire a payment of more than $1.9 million to a bank account controlled by an individual working under the direction of defendants. Upon receiving the payment, the co-conspirators allegedly laundered the stolen proceeds through a series of financial transactions designed to conceal the fraud.
Southern District of Texas
Oludayo Kolawole John Adeagbo aka John Edwards from November 2016 until July 2018, allegedly conspired with others to participate in cyber-enabled business email compromises in an attempt to steal more than $3 million from victims in Texas, including local government entities, construction companies and a Houston-area college.
The indictment alleges Adeagbo and his co-conspirators registered domain names that looked similar to legitimate companies. They then sent emails from those domains pretending to be employees at those companies, according to the charges. The conspirators allegedly sent emails to clients or customers of the companies they impersonated and deceived those customers into sending wire payments to bank accounts they controlled.
Eastern District of Virginia
According to a criminal complaint issued by the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, from Sept. 26, 2018, to Dec. 26, 2018, Olabanji Egbinola is alleged to have conspired with others to defraud a Virginia-based university.
Egbinola and co-conspirators created and used a fraudulent email account that incorporated the name of a construction company that had a large, ongoing contract with the university. Using this email account, Egbinola and co-conspirators deceived the university into transferring $469,819.49 to a bank account controlled by Egbinola and co-conspirators.
That money was quickly laundered and transferred overseas through numerous transactions. Evidence obtained during the investigation showed that Egbinola repeatedly accessed the email account used to defraud the Virginia university.
