US Seeks to Seize $5m in Money Laundering Proceeds Tied to Nigeria

US Authorities Go After $5m in Dirty Money Stashed in Nigeria, Other Accounts

US authorities file a $5 million recovery of money laundering earnings from many bank accounts, including one in Nigeria.

US officials issue a $5 million recovery request against numerous bank accounts, including Nigerian ones, for money laundering proceeds.

The Justice Department has brought a civil forfeiture case to reclaim about $5,315,746.29 in assets purportedly obtained from a business email breach, a BEC scheme, and assets used in the money laundering that followed.

The complaint states that a workers union in Dorchester, Massachusetts, was tricked out of $6.4 million in January 2023 by a counterfeit email purporting to be from the group's investment manager. The beneficiary bank account of the $6.4 million payment was purportedly altered by the email.

According to the lawsuit, the email was sent with the intention of tricking the workers union into sending money to a bank account that was owned by someone else.

The complaint also claims that after being obtained fraudulently, the money was moved through a number of intermediary bank accounts, with some of the money going to or being attempted to go to a cryptocurrency exchange or different bank accounts in Nigeria, China, Singapore, Hong Kong, and other places.

The revenues of the plan were linked by investigators to seven domestic bank accounts, the contents of which were subsequently seized.

The statement was delivered by Acting U.S. Attorney Joshua S. Levy for the District of Massachusetts, Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Nicole M. Argentieri, head of the Justice Department's Criminal Division, and Special Agent in Charge William Mancino of the U.S. Secret Service.

The case is being looked into by the US Secret Service.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Lyons for the District of Massachusetts, along with Trial Attorneys Jasmin Salehi Fashami and Adrienne E. Rosen of the Criminal Division's Money Laundering and Asset Recovery Section, are pursuing the forfeiture.

A sophisticated fraud operation known as a BEC scheme is directed at companies that accept wire transfers as payment. Large international corporations, governments, and people are all impacted by BEC schemes, which are estimated to cause $8 million in damages per day globally. Criminals utilize a variety of hacking techniques, such as social engineering and the deployment of malware, to compromise legitimate company email accounts.

Once a business email account has been hijacked, a bogus email is sent, instructing the receiver to transfer money to an unauthorized account without realizing it. As an alternative, thieves fabricate “spoofed” email domain names to lead victims into believing they are communicating with a real person. The portion of an email address that appears after the “@” symbol is known as the email domain name.

Email spoofing is altering or removing a single character from an email address in order to deceive the recipient. Thieves gather and utilize confidential data to persuade recipients of BEC emails that the transfer instructions are authentic.

Make sure the email address is correct when checking your mail on a smartphone or other mobile device before opening any attachments or following any instructions to prevent falling victim to a BEC scheme. You should also never make any changes to payments without first speaking or meeting with the intended recipient in person.

If you believe you have fallen victim to a BEC scheme, you should: 

1) get in touch with your bank right away to ask for a recall or reversal; 

2) submit a thorough complaint to the Internet Crime Complaint Center at www.ic3.gov; and 3) obtain a Hold Harmless Letter or Letter of Indemnity.

The FBI oversees the Internet Crime Complaint Center, which is the nation's central reporting point for cybercrime.

A civil forfeiture complaint is nothing more than a claim. The burden of proof in a civil forfeiture proceeding rests with the United States to demonstrate that the disputed funds are liable to forfeiture.