A Nigerian named
Kolawole Erinle has been indicted for allegedly defrauding Kansas CityUniversity of Medicine and Biosciences in the United States of $1.4m.
An
agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Mr Ayotunde Solademi, on Tuesday,
Feb. 7, told an Ikeja Special Offences Court how Kolawole Erinle allegedly
defrauded Kansas City University of Medicine and Biosciences by spoofing, a
form of cybercrime attack that targets businesses using forged sender
addresses.
Solademi,
led in examination in chief by the EFCC counsel, Temitope Banjo, told the court
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.
He
said, "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."
He
said 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.
He
added, "On that same day, somebody accessed that account and wired
$850,000 to a Diamond Bank account (now Access Bank) ending with 4471.
"The
next day, which was March 6, 2019, somebody still accessed the same Bank of
America account and wired $560,000 to the same Diamond Bank account in
Nigeria."
He
added that after all the findings, the FBI sent a petition to the EFCC for
further investigation.
The
defendant, however, pleaded not guilty to the charge.
The judge adjourned the case until Friday, Feb. 10, for continuation of the trial.
