US court sends British-Nigerian to seven years in jail over $5m cyber fraud

Oludayo Adeagbo, a British-Nigerian, has been sentenced to seven years in prison for his role in a multimillion-dollar business email compromise (BEC) scheme.

According to the US department of justice, Adeagbo, who also goes by John Edwards and John Dayo, conspired with others to steal over $3 million from different entities in Texas, including local government entities, construction companies, and a Houston-area college.

Adeagbo and conspirators also defrauded a North Carolina university of more than $1.9 million.

The case began in August 2022 when Adeagbo and two other Nigerian citizens, Donald Echeazu, 42, and Olabanji Egbinola, 44, were extradited from the United Kingdom (UK), where they resided, to face charges of conspiracy, wire fraud, and money laundering.

The US department of justice said offences were committed in North Carolina, Texas, and Virginia.

On April 8, Adeagbo pleaded guilty in two cases against him in North Carolina and Texas for participating in a business email compromise scheme, which is also called a “cyber-enabled financial fraud” scheme.

A business email compromise scheme can be initiated by scammers creating fake accounts pretending to be companies that a business regularly does business with.

Court records showed that Adeagbo and his co-conspirators obtained information about significant construction projects throughout the United States, including an ongoing multi-million-dollar project at a university in North Carolina.

“To execute the scheme, Adeagbo, Echeazu, and others registered a domain name similar to that of the legitimate construction company in charge of the university’s project and created an email address that closely resembled that of an employee of the construction company,” the department of justice said.

“Using the fake email address, the fraudsters deceived and directed the university to wire a payment of more than $1.9 million to a bank account controlled by an individual working under the direction of Adeagbo and his co-conspirators.”

Adeagbo and his co-conspirators pulled the same tricks in Texas, targeting local government entities and universities pretending to be construction companies. They received over $3 million from the scheme and $5 million overall.

Adeagbo has been ordered to pay $942,655.03 in restitution and will serve seven years in prison.