A Nigerian man, Olumide Ogunremi has been sentenced in Newark, New Jersey to three years in prison for his role in a computer hacking and identity theft scheme.
The scheme defrauded vendors of nearly $1 million of office products after “phishing” e-mail login information from government employees, U.S. Attorney Craig Carpenito announced.
Olumide Ogunremi, also known as “Tony Williams,” 43, pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Susan B. Wigenton in Newark federal court to an indictment charging him with one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud.
Judge Wigenton imposed the sentence on Wednesday, September 23 by video conference.
According to documents filed in this case and statements made in court in Newark:
From at least July 2013 through December 2013, Ogunremi and others perpetrated a computer hacking and theft scheme on U.S. government agencies’ email systems and General Services Administration vendors.
The ring employed “phishing” attacks, which used fraudulent e-mails and websites that mimicked the legitimate e-mails and web pages of U.S. government agencies including the US Environmental Protection Agency.
Unwitting employees of the agencies visited the fake web pages and provided their e-mail account usernames and passwords.
It added:
Ogunremi and his conspirators used these stolen credentials to access the employees’ e-mail accounts in order to place fraudulent orders for office products, typically printer toner cartridges, in the employees’ names from vendors who were authorized to do business with U.S. government agencies.
Ogunremi and his conspirators directed the vendors to ship the fraudulent orders to individuals located in New Jersey and elsewhere to be repackaged and ultimately shipped to overseas locations, which were controlled by Ogunremi and his conspirators.
Once the orders were received in Nigeria, Ogunremi and his conspirators reportedly sold the toner cartridges to another individual on the black market for profit.
Ogunremi had been scheduled to enter a guilty plea to an information charging him with conspiracy to commit wire fraud in March 2018, but fled to Canada. He was extradited from Canada to New Jersey on September 26, 2019.
On June 10, 2014, Abiodun Adejohn, a/k/a “James Williams,” 36, of Nigeria, pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud conspiracy and was sentenced in 2015 to three years in prison.
In addition to the prison term, Judge Wigenton sentenced Ogunremi to two years of supervised release and ordered him to pay restitution of $68,618.
Source: United States Department of Justice.
