A Newark, New Jersey federal court presided over by US District Judge William H. Walls Judge Walls has sentenced Mr. Abiodun Ade John to a 36 month imprisonment for his role in computer hacking scheme that targeted government employees.
According to New Jersey Attorney, Mr. Paul J. Fishman, who briefed our correspondent on the suit, the 31 year old Nigerian man was arraigned and imprisoned for his role in a computer hacking and identity theft me that defrauded vendors of nearly $1 million of office products after phishing e-mail login information from government employees.
The New Jersey Attorney also disclosed that the convicted accused had used several fake names like James Williams, Olawale Adeyemi, Abiodun AdeJohn, and Abiodun Ade-John while carrying out the fraudulent acts.
He added that Abiodun had previously pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge William H. Walls to an information charging him with one count of wire fraud conspiracy.
According to documents filed in the case and statements made in court, the scheme employed “phishing” attacks, which used fraudulent e-mails and websites that mimicked the legitimate e-mails and web pages of U.S. government agencies, such as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
Employees of those agencies visited the fake web pages and provided their e-mail account usernames and passwords with which the criminal and his co-conspirators carried out his frauds.
The accused and his conspirators used these stolen credentials to access the employees’ e-mail accounts in order to place fraudulent orders for office products, typically printer toner cartridges, in the employees’ names from vendors who were authorized to do business with U.S. government agencies.
The unsuspecting vendors were however directed to ship the fraudulent orders to individuals in New Jersey and elsewhere to be repackaged and ultimately shipped to overseas locations controlled by the accused and his conspirators.
According to the suit papers, once the orders were received in Nigeria, Ade John and his conspirators would sell the toner cartridges to another individual on the black market for profit.
Adejohn was arrested in Arizona on September 24, 2013, and has been detained since his arrest but, in addition to the prison term, Judge Walls sentenced him to three years of supervised release and ordered him to pay $630,806.48 in restitution.From Leadership.