] ] Nigerian hacks U.S. government portal
There was a time in the not-sodistant past in the U.S. when I was somewhat uncomfortable with being associated with Nigeria. In gatherings, I would hesitate to proclaim my Nigerian heritage. It was an unfortunate situation because Nigerians do have many excellent positive characteristics: they represent one of the smartest people on earth – if there is such a thing, they are happy – despite the deplorable living conditions across virtually all social classes in the country, and they are awfully entrepreneurial. So, what was my problem?
One problem was the infamous “Nigerian letters,” which were basically scams in which solicitations were made to virtually everyone on this planet who had an email address, for an amount of money (advance fee) that would be used to prevent the loss of an astronomically large sum of “family” money – usually in the tens of millions to several billions of US dollars. The promised gain for you was a sizeable proportion – twenty percent is not uncommon, of the family money. Sadly, some folks, especially in the U.S. and Europe, fell for the scams, losing large sums of savings and retirement money to the Nigerian scammers.
Erika Eichelberger, a reporter for Mother Jones online magazine, wrote an interesting article in the 20 March 2014 issue of the magazine, with the curious title: “What I Learned Hanging Out With Nigerian Email Scammers.” She stated a few statistics: “In 2011, the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) received almost 30,000 reports of these advance fee ploys, called “419 scams,” after the section of the Nigerian criminal code that outlaws fraud.” Eichelberger also stated that “the FBI received over 4,000 complaints of advance fee romance scams in 2012, with victim losses totaling over $55 million.” Nigerians aren’t the only ones committing international advance fee fraud, although nearly one-fifth of all such scams are said to originate from Nigeria.
There have also been other kinds of large-scale scams perpetrated by Nigerians, at least in the U.S. and Europe, the least of which include credit card fraud, bank heists, document falsifications, fake marriages, and robberies. For juicier, fairly recent crime stories involving Nigerians, visit naijagists.com. You will read about two Nigerians who were busted in the UK for operating 752 bank accounts for the purpose of committing fraud, and how the U.S. government allegedly froze the bank accounts of the Nigerian Embassy/ Consulate in New York for reasons of money laundering by top Nigerian embassy folks. You will read about the incidence of Stella Oduah, then the Minister of Aviation, who was allegedly caught with 12 large boxes filled with hard currency ($$$) during a trip to Dubai. Obviously, I cannot verify the veracity of the stories on naijagists.com, but they do point to chaotic moral issues in Nigeria.
Crimes committed in the U.S. by Nigerians, or perhaps the coverage of it in the media, seemed to have peaked during the first term of Obasanjo’s presidency, a
Ttime when the media coverage of Nigeria was entirely focused on the crimes Nigerians committed – absolutely nothing else! Then, something happened: positive news about Nigeria started to make it into the airwaves. I caught this development and shared it with friends and family members, having been positively awed by it. Since then, Nigeria’s lot seems to have been soaring, save the Boko Haram spoiler.
Then came the event that aired last week on 10 June 2014, in which a Nigerian man in the U.S. pleaded guilty to a computer hacking scheme that targeted U.S. government employees. All coverage of the event made sure it identified the scammer as a Nigerian, as if to remind everyone of the notoriety that Nigerians possess in the arena of thievery and scamming. Many newspapers in America carried the news, but the most credible source is perhaps the one from FBI itself, from which the following details were obtained. he Nigerian man, Abiodun Adejohn, who has also assumed various aliases: James Williams, Olawale Adeyemi, Abiodun Ade John, and Abiodun Ade-John, and is approximately 30 years of age, admitted his role in what the New Jersey U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman described as “a computer hacking and identity theft scheme that defrauded vendors of nearly $1 million of office products after phishing e-mail login information from government employees.” The scammer pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge William H. Walls in Newark federal court to wire fraud conspiracy. According to documents filed in this 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.”
The stolen credentials were used by the scammers to access the employees’ e-mail accounts, from where they placed orders for office products, such as printer toner cartridges, in the employees’ names from vendors who were authorized to do business with U.S. government agencies. The scammers then directed the vendors to ship the fraudulent orders to individuals in New Jersey and elsewhere, from where they were repackaged and ultimately shipped to overseas locations, including Nigeria. Once the orders were received in Nigeria, Adejohn and his conspirators sold the stolen products (toner cartridges) to individuals on the black market. Although Adejohn confessed to the crime just last week, he has been under arrest in Arizona (U.S.) since September 24, 2013. The wire fraud conspiracy to which Adejohn pleaded guilty carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Sentencing of Adejohn is scheduled for September 9, 2014.
Despite Nigerians’ many good qualities, people often focus on the negative aspects because they are seemingly very pervasive.