Md. Man Gets 87 Months In Prison For Accessing Email Accounts, Duping Victims Into Wiring $4.2M
GREENBELT, MD. (WJZ) — A Beltsville man was sentenced Monday to 87 months in federal prison for stealing over $4.2 million in a business email compromise scheme.
Nkeng Amin, aka "Rapone" aka "Arnold", 31, of Beltsville, Md., to 87 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release for a large-scale business email compromise scheme during which Amin and his co-conspirators obtained over $4.2 million from at least 13 individual and business victims.
Amin also must forfeit and pay $1,021,474 in restitution.
According to his plea agreement and evidence presented in Monday's sentencing hearing, between February 2016 and July 2017, Amin and his co-conspirators gained access to email accounts associated with the victims.
Then, posing as an entity the victims were associated with, sent false wiring instructions to the victims, who wired millions of dollars into "drop accounts".
Amin and other then disbursed the money in the drop accounts by transferring the money electronically, withdrawing cash, transferring funds to other accounts at the same bank, obtaining cashier's checks and writing checks to others.
Amin worked with co-conspirator Aldrin Fomukong to perpetrate fraud in Maryland. He also independently spoke with leaders of the fraud scheme overseas and recruited and managed his own co-conspirators, including co-defendant Yanick Eyong, to open bank accounts to receive victim funds and withdraw the funds from the fictitious bank accounts before the fraud was detected.
Over the course of the conspiracy, Amin, Fomukong, and their co-conspirators obtained over $4.2 million and attempted to steal over $10.9 million from at least 13 victims.
The following co-conspirators all pleaded guilty to their roles in the scheme.
• Aldrin Fon Fomukong, a/k/a "Albanky," a/k/a "A.L.," age 24, of Greenbelt, Maryland;
• Carlson Cho, a/k/a "Uncle Tiga2," age 23, of Braintree, Massachusetts;
• Izou Ere Digifa, a/k/a "Lzuo Digifa," a/k/a "Mimi VA," age 22, of Lynchburg, Virginia;
• Yanick Eyong, age 26, of Bowie, Maryland; and
• Ishmail Ganda, a/k/a "Banker TD," age 31, of College Park, Maryland.
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