US indicts Nigerians for involvement in over $6M BEC scam

The U.S. Department of Justice has indicted several people involved with a BEC scam. Nigerians Kosi Goodness Simon-Ebo, James Junior Aliyu, and Henry Onyedikachi Echefu are all facing charges for money laundering and wire fraud in relation to a business email compromise scam that resulted in more than $6 million in losses, with Simon-Ebo having been extradited to the U.S. from Canada, reports The Record, a news site by cybersecurity firm Recorded Future. All of the defendants operated from South Africa and worked with Maryland-based co-conspirators to facilitate the BEC scam, which involved the delivery of fraudulent wiring instructions using emails with forged sender addresses aimed at luring targets into money transfers to attackers' drop accounts, according to prosecutors. While all three are facing wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering charges, Aliyu has also been indicted for direct money laundering. "For example, defendant Aliyu is alleged to have made a $350,000 wire transfer from one of the drop accounts in Maryland to an account he controlled in South Africa, knowing that the funds were the proceeds of a crime and that the transaction was designed to conceal the nature, source and ownership of those funds," said prosecutors.