Four Nigerians arrested recently in Europe have been charged in the United States over their alleged role in a scheme that involved computer hacking and filing false tax returns.
According to the US Justice Department, the suspects are Akinola Taylor, Olakunle Oyebanjo, Kazeem Olanrewaju Runsewe, and Olayemi Adafin, who is a UK citizen. They were arrested in late November and early December in the UK and Sweden.
The men have been charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, filing false claims with the United States, theft of public money or property, and aggravated identity theft.
The United States wants them to be extradited to face the charges brought against them. They can each be sentenced to a maximum of 20 years in prison for the wire fraud charges.
Court documents showed that Taylor and Runsewe hacked into the systems of US businesses in an effort to steal personal information that could be used to file false tax returns with the IRS.
“Adafin and Oyebanjo assisted in the collection fraud proceeds directed to prepaid debit cards in their possession or to addresses or bank accounts they controlled or to which they had access and transferred a share of the fraud proceeds to other conspirators,” the DoJ said on Monday.
The operation started in around 2017. The cybercriminals hacked into the systems of accounting and other types of firms and stole personally identifiable information, often belonging to the victim’s customers.
The access to the targeted organizations was in many cases acquired from xDedic, an underground marketplace specializing in the sale of access to hacked servers. xDedic was shut down in 2019 by law enforcement in the United States and Europe.
Related: Three Nigerian Users of Agent Tesla RAT Arrested
Related: Alleged Cybercrime Ringleader Arrested in Nigeria
Related: Nigerian Authorities Arrest 11 Members of Prolific BEC Fraud Group
Related: Nigerian Admits in US Court to Hacking Payroll Company
Eduard Kovacs (@EduardKovacs) is a contributing editor at SecurityWeek. He worked as a high school IT teacher for two years before starting a career in journalism as Softpedia’s security news reporter. Eduard holds a bachelor’s degree in industrial informatics and a master’s degree in computer techniques applied in electrical engineering.
More from Eduard Kovacs
- High-Severity Privilege Escalation Vulnerability Patched in VMware Workstation
- GoAnywhere MFT Users Warned of Zero-Day Exploit
- UK Car Retailer Arnold Clark Hit by Ransomware
- EV Charging Management System Vulnerabilities Allow Disruption, Energy Theft
- Unpatched Econolite Traffic Controller Vulnerabilities Allow Remote Hacking
- Google Fi Data Breach Reportedly Led to SIM Swapping
- Microsoft’s Verified Publisher Status Abused in Email Theft Campaign
- British Retailer JD Sports Discloses Data Breach Affecting 10 Million Customers
Latest News
- Fraudulent “CryptoRom” Apps Slip Through Apple and Google App Store Review Process
- US Downs Chinese Balloon Off Carolina Coast
- Microsoft: Iran Unit Behind Charlie Hebdo Hack-and-Leak Op
- Feds Say Cyberattack Caused Suicide Helpline’s Outage
- Big China Spy Balloon Moving East Over US, Pentagon Says
- Former Ubiquiti Employee Who Posed as Hacker Pleads Guilty
- Cyber Insights 2023: Venture Capital
- Atlassian Warns of Critical Jira Service Management Vulnerability
