Five of the defendants – a Mexican, two Americans, a Ghanaian and a Nigerian – were arrested in the US, the justice department said.
The other three, two Ghanaians and a Nigerian, were arrested outside the US and are being held pending extradition. Cyber crime The arrests were made as part of the department’s efforts to fight schemes to intercept wire transfers from businesses and individuals.
“The defendants allegedly unleashed a barrage of international fraud schemes that targeted US businesses and individuals, robbing them to the tune of approximately 15 million dollars,” said John Cronan, Acting Assistant Attorney-General.
The indictments are part of Operation Keyboard Warrior, a recently announced effort coordinated by the US and international law enforcement to disrupt online fraud perpetrated from Africa.
The suspects reportedly committed series of intrusions into the servers and email systems of a Memphis-based real estate company in 2017, according to the indictment.
The defendants were able to use spoofed email addresses and other techniques to identify large financial transactions and initiated fraudulent email correspondence with relevant business parties. They then redirected closing funds for real estate transactions to destinations in Africa.
The indictment includes charges related to wire fraud, money laundering, computer fraud and identity fraud. Some of the Africa-based defendants are also charged with operating romance scams, fraudulent-check scams, gold-buying scams and credit card scams.
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