A Nigerian nationwide has been sentenced to 10 years and one month in jail and ordered to pay practically $1.5 million in restitution after being convicted of great cash laundering offenses.
Olugbenga Lawal, 33, of Indianapolis, Indiana, was discovered responsible in August final yr of conspiring to commit cash laundering, following responsible pleas from three co-conspirators for a similar crime.
He laundered thousands and thousands of {dollars} obtained from varied web fraud schemes, together with romance scams and enterprise electronic mail compromise (BEC), based on the Department of Justice (DoJ).
Between January 2019 and June 2020, financial institution accounts related to Lawal and his co-conspirators acquired thousands and thousands traced to particular person and company victims of those schemes.
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Seven accounts within the identify of Lawal or his enterprise, Luxe Logistics LLC, acquired over $3.6 million in deposits between January 2019 and May 2020, unfold throughout 5 completely different monetary establishments to extend his capability for cash laundering, as said by the DoJ.
Lawal reportedly collaborated with the Nigerian head of a world fraud operation, exchanging US {dollars} into Nigerian foreign money that may very well be accessed in Nigeria. He additionally aided in laundering funds by transport automobiles to Nigeria.
Romance fraud and BEC are high earners for cybercriminals. In 2022, the previous raked in practically $736 million, based on the FBI. The DoJ alleged that lots of the victims whose cash Lawal laundered have been aged web customers who have been tricked into wiring funds to scammers they met and fell in love with.
BEC resulted in sufferer losses of over $2.7 billion in 2022, based on the FBI, though the precise determine is probably going a lot larger as a result of under-reporting of each crime sorts.