Princewell Arinze Duru, 33, of Sacramento, and George Ugochukwu Egwumba, 47, of Cypress, were each given more than ten years in prison for their involvement in the Nigerian-run business by separate Californian courts.
Both men were found guilty of financial and wire fraud in June. They are just two of the 80 individuals accused of crimes connected to the scam, which saw victims, especially older adults, defrauded of at least $6 million.
In announcing the punishment, the Department of Justice (DoJ) stated that many of the conspiracy’s members, who were based in Nigeria, communicated with their fellow conspirators in the U.S. using intermediaries.
There were “many additional scams, including business email compromise (B.E.C) scams, romance scams, elder fraud, and fraud leveraging malware” in the plan.
The intermediaries in the U.S. helped receive and launder the fraudulent earnings through U.S. bank accounts and money transfer services like Western Union, MoneyGram, or bitcoin.
While committing fraud “using malware and other cybercrime tools,” Egwumba got bank account information from collaborators to give to other thieves. He obtained the bank account information while chatting with other thieves and later utilized it to accept stolen money.
By using fake company bank accounts, money-transfer services, and cryptocurrency wallets, Duru helped his fellow cybercriminals collect and launder the proceeds of their crimes.
However, one of the ringleaders, Chuks Eroha, 42, is still at large and is thought to have fled to Nigeria after the Federal Bureau of Investigation issued a warrant for his arrest in 2017. Although the U.S.U.S. Authorities have so far obtained 19 guilty pleas in connection with the cyber fraud operation, Eroha is still at large and is believed to have fled to Nigeria.
