FBI indicts Nigerian big boy, Kolawole Erinle, for allegedly defrauding U.S. university of $1.4million

FBI indicts Nigerian big boy for allegedly defr@uding U.S. university of $1.4million

A Nigerian big boy, Kolawole Erinle, has been indicted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) for allegedly defr@uding Kansas City University of Medicine and Biosciences in the United States of $1.4 million. 

An FBI’s agent, Ayotunde Solademi, told an Ikeja Special Offences Court on Tuesday, February 7, how Erinle allegedly committed the crime.

Solademi, a Foreign Service national investigator for the FBI, Office of the Legal Attaché in the US Consulate in Nigeria, said the university became a victim of spoofing, a form of cybercrime att@ck that targets businesses using forged sender addresses.

Erinle is standing trial alongside his firm, Rinde-Remdex Nigeria Limited, on a three-count charge bordering on conspiracy, retention of proceeds of criminal conduct, and obtaining money under false pretence preferred against him by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission.

The defendant however pleaded not guilty to the charge.

Solademi told Justice Ramon Oshodi that KCUMB underwent a major construction project with a construction company called J.E.Dunn in Kansas City sometime in 2019 and the university made a wired transfer of approximately $1.41m to an account that it believed belonged to J. E. Dunn.

“On March 27, 2019, J.E. Dunn contacted KCUMB asking about the payment for the pending invoices and KCUMB replied that the payment has been made.

On March 28, 2019, Dunn confirmed that they did not receive payment. It was later found out by both parties that somebody changed the wire transfer details for Dunn using a fake email domain jedunn.org whereas the real domain name for the construction company is jedunn.com.

After this, the case was reported to the FBI and an investigation carried out showed that the email account of Dunn’s Chief Financial Officer was spoofed.

The wire transfer of $1.41m made by KCUMB entered into a Bank of America account with an account number ending with 6843 on March 5 2019. On that same day, somebody accessed that account and wired $850,000 to a Diamond Bank account (now Access Bank) ending with 4471. (Continue reading from next slide)