US court sentences two Nigerian nationals to prison for wire fraud

Two Nigerian nationals, Franklin Ifeanyichukwu Okwonna, 34, and Ebuka Raphael Umeti, 35, have been sentenced to prison for their roles in a wire fraud scheme that resulted in over $5 million in losses.

The sentences were announced by the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) on Wednesday.

Franklin Ifeanyichukwu Okwonna was sentenced to five years and three months in prison by a federal judge in the Eastern District of Virginia on September 3, 2024.

In addition to the prison term, Okwonna was ordered to pay nearly $5 million in restitution. He had pleaded guilty on May 20 to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and aggravated identity theft.

Okwonna’s co-defendant, Ebuka Raphael Umeti, was sentenced earlier on August 27, 2024, to 10 years in prison and was also ordered to pay nearly $5 million in restitution.

Umeti was convicted by a federal jury on June 13 of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, three counts of wire fraud, conspiracy to cause intentional damage to a protected computer, and intentional damage to a protected computer.

According to court documents and evidence presented during Umeti’s trial, the scheme, which operated between February 2016 and July 2021, involved sending phishing emails to victim businesses.

These emails, appearing to originate from trusted sources like banks or vendors, contained malicious attachments that, once opened, infected the victim’s computer systems with malware.

This allowed the defendants and their co-conspirators to gain unauthorized access to sensitive information, which they then used to deceive companies into making wire transfers to accounts controlled by the criminals.

The scheme resulted in or attempted to cause over $5 million in losses to various victim companies in the United States and elsewhere.