Mojeed Yinusa is the latest Nigerian Yahoo Boy to be indicted by the U.S. government over an eight-count charge of wire fraud and money-laundering in the U.S. District Court District of Minnesota on Tuesday.
According to court filings seen by Peoples Gazette, Mr Yinusa compromised the business email of Company A and filtered the organisation’s emails in such a manner that new mails were redirected to a hidden folder.
The filtering rules were to conceal the fraudulent correspondence from the authentic handlers of the company’s email.
The Yahoo Boy “carried out a business email compromise scheme that targeted and deceived employees of Company A and National Bank of Commerce,” noted the indictment filed on Tuesday.
Mr Yinusa, using Company A’s email, thereafter, contacted the National Bank of Commerce, to notify them of a change in leadership specifically that J.S., a so-called new director of finance, had been appointed.
He asked that J.S. be granted full access to Company A’s accounts. The National Bank of Commerce asked for IDs and other forms to fill to ascertain J.S. identity, Mr Yinusa provided a fake driving licence that claimed J.S. was from West Virginia.
“The licence contained J. S’s real date of birth, address, physical description and driver’s licence number,” stated court filings.
On February 9, 2023, he emailed the completed forms to the bank which granted J.S. access to the Company A’s accounts including those ending in –5038 and –7118.
It didn’t take long for Mr Yinusa to drain the account making fraudulent withdrawals. He transferred $103,930 from Company A’s account to another account under his control on February 17, 2023.
On February 23 the same year, he transferred another tranche of $125,000 from the company’s account to another account.
He attempted to transfer $109,302 and $80,000 on February 14 and 16 2023 but the transactions were unsuccessful.
By the time the owner of the company realised his organisation’s email was compromised, Mr Yinusa had allegedly stolen $227,000 from the account. His information has been passed onto the FBI for investigation and action.
The Yahoo Boy still seems to be at large in Nigeria. It was unclear if the FBI had reached the EFCC to help track him down for potential extradition to Minnesota for trial.
While Nigerians including Hushpuppi, Woodberry, Bolanle Bombata a.k.a. Bobo Chicago are languishing in U.S. jails for scamming American citizens, the traditional ruler Apetu of Ipetumodu Oba Joseph Oloyede and Pastor Edward Abiodun Oluwasanmi are facing trials for their alleged role in multimillion-naira Internet fraud.