A man from NY was sentenced to a 33 month term after a trial in which he was found guilty for money laundering.
The government claimed Kaodichimma Anyanwu laundered approximately $67,921 through one of his bank accounts, held using an alias.
Where did this money come from? Good question!
Anyanwu was part of a criminal gang that used a “business email compromise (BEC) scheme”. This is where the criminals will send believable looking invoices from compromised company A’s email server to a target victim company B requesting immediate payment for an invoice, only the invoice links to a payment account the criminals own.
The key here is the invoice coming from Company A’s domain gives credibility to the request, so some victims pay.
The government claimed this criminal gang made approximately $660,766 using this scheme against a North Carolina University.
As just a money launderer, it sounds as if Anyanwu was a small part of the overall gang’s activities.
In this case, according to court filings and evidence at trial, ANYANWU’s co-conspirators obtained approximately $660,766 through a BEC that victimized a public university located within the Middle District of North Carolina. ANYANWU, who was born in Nigeria, laundered approximately $67,921 of that money through a bank account ANYANWU held in the name of an alias.
A federal jury convicted ANYANWU after a week-long trial.
https://www.justice.gov/usao-mdnc/pr/new-york-man-sentenced-33-months-money-laundering-case
Sources:
- https://www.justice.gov/usao-mdnc/pr/new-york-man-sentenced-33-months-money-laundering-case
- https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/63390571/united-states-v-rahim/
- https://www.justice.gov/usao-nj/pr/nigerian-national-indicted-wire-and-copyright-fraud-scheme
Transcript:
00:00:10:00 – 00:00:30:08
Keith
Today, on eCrimeBytes nibble number 47, we’re going to talk about how an e-mail compromise led to a 33 month prison sentence for one money launderer out of New York State. And if you wonder what 33 months is, it’s almost three years. It’s just three months short of three years.
00:00:30:08 – 00:00:38:07
Keith
So a man from New York was sentenced to a 33 month term after a trial in which he was found guilty for this money laundering.
00:00:38:07 – 00:00:50:24
Keith
The government claimed Kaodichimma Anyanwu laundered approximately $68,000 through one of his bank accounts, but it was a bank account held using an alias.
00:00:50:24 – 00:01:14:02
Keith
So where did this money come from? Good question. Anyanwu was part of a criminal gang that used a and for you listeners, I’m giving air quotes now, business email compromise scheme. And what this means is attackers will compromise an email domain a let’s just call them company A, CompanyA.com.
00:01:14:04 – 00:01:14:21
Keith
Now,
00:01:14:21 – 00:01:25:27
Keith
when criminals will compromise their email server, they can now start sending emails out of the email server with the email domain of CompanyA.com just like legitimate employees could.
00:01:25:27 – 00:01:34:27
Keith
So what they do is they pick a new target victim and we’ll just call them company B. They’re a victim. They haven’t been compromised or anything like that.
00:01:35:00 – 00:01:58:12
Keith
And these attackers, they will fake invoices from company A send them using Company A’s email server over to company B in order to be paid. And you might think, well, what’s that going to do? They’re just going to pay the invoice and it will go to company A, but the attackers control the invoice, so they put their routing number on that invoice.
00:01:58:12 – 00:02:08:06
Keith
And because it looks so believable coming from CompanyA.com, there are victims out there that they paid. They paid the money.
00:02:08:06 – 00:02:20:20
Keith
So the government claimed that the criminal gang made approximately $661,000 using this scheme that I just described to you against a North Carolina university.
00:02:20:20 – 00:02:24:13
Keith
And like I said, Anyanwu, he was just the money launderer.
00:02:24:13 – 00:02:50:19
Keith
So it sounds like his role in this whole gang was actually pretty small because you can imagine they have people that have to compromise these email servers. They have people that have to make these invoices. And, you know, they have this third party here, which is Anyanwu, that does the money laundering. But in this case he was caught and he is sentenced to 33 months in prison.
00:02:50:22 – 00:03:20:29
Keith
So if you enjoyed this real quick eCrimeBytes update that we call a nibble, you will definitely enjoy one of our full eCrimeBytes episodes where we take a case like this and we go into it 30 to 60 Minutes and we talk about the people behind it, the criminals and the the victims. In some cases we talk about how the crime happened from a technical standpoint, and then we talk about how they were caught and what happens after they’re caught.
00:03:20:29 – 00:03:29:18
Keith
So I look forward to seeing you on one of those longer eCrimeBytes episodes soon. Thanks. Bye.
#ecrimebytes #electronic #truecrime #podcast #humor #funny #comedy #bec #theft #compromise
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