Security News > 2024 > January > Nigerian hacker arrested for stealing $7.5M from charities
A Nigerian national was arrested in Ghana and is facing charges related to business email compromise attacks that caused a charitable organization in the United States to lose more than $7.5 million.
Olusegun Samson Adejorin was arrested on December 29 for defrauding two charitable organizations in Maryland and New York, according to an eight-count federal grand jury indictment in the U.S. Specifically, Adejorin faces charges for wire fraud, aggravated identity theft, and unauthorized access to a protected computer linked to attacks aimed at two Maryland-based charitable organizations, culminating in the embezzlement of $7.5 million.
In an annoucement this week, the U.S. Department of Justice says that Adejorin's fraud scheme occurred between June and August 2020 and involved unauthorized access to email accounts as well as impersonating employees.
To successfully process withdrawals over $10,000, Adejorin used stolen credentials to send emails from accounts of employees that needed to approve the transactions.
"As part of the scheme, Adejorin also allegedly purchased a credential harvesting tool designed to steal email login credentials, registered spoofed domain names, and concealed the fraudulent emails from a legitimate employee by causing the fraudulent emails to be moved to an inconspicuous location within Employee 1's mailbox." - U.S. Department of Justice.
Following these actions, Adejorin successfully tricked Victim 1 into transferring $7.5 million to bank accounts the attacker controlled, while the organization believed they were depositing the amounts into legitimate Victim 2 bank accounts.