DALLAS
Federal officials charged a Nigerian in the U.S. on a student visa with one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud stemming from his role in what has become known as “Business E-Mail Compromise” scheme, authorities announced this week.
Amechi Colvis Amuegbunam, 28, of Lagos, Nigeria, was arrested late last month on a related federal criminal complaint, filed earlier this year in Texas, when he entered the U.S. in Baltimore, officials said.
Amuegbunam is facing up to 30 years in federal prison and a $1 million fine, officials said.
The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center or IC3 has been tracking this scheme and to date, perpetrators of the scheme have victimized more than 7000 businesses based in the U.S. and more than 1000 foreign-based businesses, according to officials.
The total loss to the U.S. victims is approximately $747 million, officials said.
The indictment makes the following allegations:
- From November 2013 through August 2015, Amuegbunam and other individuals sent fraudulent e-mails to companies in Texas and elsewhere, containing material misrepresentations that caused the companies to wire transfer funds as instructed on a pdf document that was attached to the e-mail.
- Amuegbunam is responsible for more than a $1.3 million attempted loss, and a $615,550 actual loss, to U.S. companies, including Wells Fargo and JP Morgan Chase.
- The FBI, according to the complaint, is investigating an extensive money laundering and wire fraud scheme primarily operated by individuals in Nigeria, and assisted by individuals in the U.S., who are exploiting open source information and using social engineering techniques to steal millions of dollars from U.S. corporations and individuals.
- The scheme has become so common that the term, “Business E-Mail Compromise” scheme, was coined, and on Aug. 25, the FBI issued a Public Service Announcement regarding the scheme.
- The investigation of this particular scheme began when two companies in the Dallas/Fort Worth area reported to the FBI in Dallas that they had received targeted spear phishing e-mails.
- These e-mails appeared to be a forwarded message, allegedly from a top executive at the company, sent to an employee in the company’s accounting department who had authority to make financial transfers for the company.
- Although the e-mails appeared to be coming from a company executive, the messages were actually coming from a false e-mail account fraudulently created to look like a legitimate company e-mail account.
- A fraudulent domain name was used that contained one small difference from the true company’s e-mail address—such as transposed letters.
- After complying with the spear phishing e-mail instructions to transfer funds, the companies became victims of this scheme, each losing approximately $100,000.
- The investigation traced the creation of some of the pdfs to Amuegbunam.
The FBI urges any business who believes it was victimized by the BEC scheme to contact them at 972-559-5000.
Additional information about the scheme may be found in a Fraud Alert issued by the Financial Services Information Sharing and Analysis Center, the FBI, and the U.S. Secret Service.