The two Nigerians used Personally identifiable information (PII) of various ERS participants to make changes to their accounts in the ERS internet portal.
A-38-year old Nigerian, Olumide Bankole Morakinyo, has been sentenced to eight years in prison and ordered to repay $975,863 by an America court.
The money is equivalent to N400million repayment, in restitution to multiple victims of his conspiracy to commit money laundering, the court revealed on Wednesday.
The U.S. District Judge, Robert Pitman, while ruling, ordered that Morakinyo be placed on three years of supervised release, after completing his prison term.
Morakinyo, who resides in Canada, was said to conspired with Lukman Shina Aminu, a resident of New Hampshire, to create unauthorised accounts for participants in the Employees Retirement System of Texas (ERS) internet portal.
Aminu who was sentenced on December 18, 2019, to 51 months in prison, had been charged in a separate indictment.
It was revealed that the two Nigerians used Personally identifiable information (PII) of various ERS participants to make changes to their accounts in the ERS internet portal. While bank deposit information on file in the system was changed to re-route retirement payments to debit cards controlled by Aminu, document revealed.
Aminu, who possessed the physical debit cards, would withdraw money under instructions from his co-conspirator, Morakinyo and then transfer or deposit that money at Morakinyo’s direction.
Morakinyo and Aminu used the debit cards for cash withdrawals and to purchase money orders for personal expenses and for buying used vehicles to be shipped overseas to Nigeria and Benin for resale.
They reportedly made the money appear to be legitimate income with these international automobile transactions, but Morakinyo and his conspirators laundered the fraud proceeds by concealing the source of the funds.