Henry Onyedikachi Echefu, one of three Nigerian men involved in an elaborate business email compromise (BEC) scheme, has pleaded guilty to his conspiracy charges in a US court.
Echefu, together with his co-conspirators, are residents of South Africa and were involved in the BEC operation from February 2016 to July 2017. He is charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering, and arrived to the United States to appear in court after being extradited from Canada.
As part of the BEC scheme, Echefu and two of his co-conspirators, Kosi Goodness Simon-Ebo and James Junior Aliyu, gained unauthorized access to email accounts “associated with individuals and businesses targeted by the conspirators.” and sent false instructions to transfer money. to bank accounts known as “drain accounts”.
The men then distributed the illegally obtained funds to other accounts, initiating money transfers, using cashier’s checks, issuing checks to other individuals or simply withdrawing cash, leading to charges of conspiracy to commit money laundering.
The loss from the illegal transactions amounted to $199,929, and Echefu controlled approximately $22,000 of those funds.
Echefu will face a maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison and, according to the plea agreement, will return the amount of money he had control of and compensate the victim for losses of $199,929.