A Nigerian national has been sentenced to over a decade in federal prison following his conviction on cyber fraud charges. Bamidele Omotosho, 42, received a 12-year and 7-month sentence for his role in a series of sophisticated scams that targeted U.S. citizens, as reported by the U.S. Attorney's Office. Omotosho, who pleaded guilty in 2022, was also ordered to pay more than $2 million in restitution to his victims.
The schemes, which occurred in 2017 and 2018, involved purchasing stolen access credentials and personal identifying information, such as Social Security numbers of U.S. citizens from xDedic, a now-defunct darknet marketplace. Using these illicitly obtained details, Omotosho and, his co-conspirators executed various fraudulent actions including hacking into the Employees Retirement System of Texas (ERS) portal, where they diverted retirement payments to their own controlled accounts.
In addition to pension fraud, Omotosho's operations extended into other territories. They infiltrated accounting firms to acquire further personal information for filing bogus tax returns, committed identity theft leading to fraudulent credit card applications, carried out romance scams defrauding the emotionally vulnerable, and conducted business email compromise scams, one of which led to a quarter-million-dollar loss for a pharmaceutical company.
The proceeds of these scams were siphoned through a sophisticated money laundering network; involving depositing funds onto prepaid debit cards or into bank accounts opened with stolen identities. Some of the laundered money was used to purchase used vehicles, which were then shipped to Nigeria and sold. According to the U.S. Attorney's Office announcement, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation and Texas Department of Public Safety's Texas Rangers Public Integrity Unit investigated the cases.
These efforts culminated in Omotosho's extradition from the United Kingdom, and subsequent sentencing by U.S. District Judge William F. Jung. Assistant United States Attorneys Michael M. Gordon and Michael C. Galdo took the lead in the prosecution, which also involved the Department of Justice's Office of International Affairs.
