5 million emails sent in 10 days: Inside the world of 78 Nigerian Yahoo Boys
An
American online publisher focusing on the tech industry, TechCrunch,
has revealed that a whopping five million emails were sent within 10
days by a group of 80 Internet scammers who were rounded up in an
earth-shaking clampdown on fraudsters in the United States on Thursday.
Out of the 80 individuals involved, 78 of them are Nigerians residing variously in the United States and Nigeria.
A
spokesperson for the U.S. Attorneys Office for the Central District of
California, Thom Mrozek, confirmed that the indicted persons were
arrested during raids on Thursday — mostly in the Los Angeles area.
“A total of 80 defendants are allegedly involved in the scheme,” the medium said of the early morning raids.
The
145-page indictment, unsealed Thursday, said the 80 named individuals
are charged with conspiracy to commit “mail and bank fraud, as well as
aggravated identity theft and money laundering.”
Most of the individuals alleged to be involved in the scheme are based in Nigeria, Mrozek said.
TechCrunch
reported that, for 10 days in March, millions of unsuspecting people
were caught in these scammers’ massive spam campaigns.
“Each
email looked like it came from someone the recipient knew: the spammer
took stolen email addresses and passwords, quietly logged into their
email account, scraped their recently sent emails and pushed out
personalized emails to the recipient of that sent email with a link to a
fake site, pushing a weight loss pill or a bitcoin scam,” the online
publishing outfit reported.
“The emails were so convincing more
than 100,000 people clicked through,” it said, providing the details of
how it employed tech security researchers to track the online activities
of the fraudsters.
“We know this because a security
researcher found the server leaking the entire operation. The spammer
had forgotten to set a password,” it wrote.
It noted that, as of
the time it accessed one of the scammers’ servers’, the rig was no
longer running, probably in an effort to avoid getting blacklisted by
anti-spam providers. “But the server was primed to start spamming
again,” TechCrunch said.
It revealed that there were “more than three million unique exposed credentials sitting on the spammer’s server.”
The
server was hosted on intelimost.com, with no contact information for
the spammer, TechCrunch said; and contacted the hosting provider,
Awknet, urging it to pull the scammers’ server offline. Awknet obliged.
“We found a massive spam operation and sunk its servers,” TechCrunch said.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation indictment sheet obtained by The PUNCH is revealing.
The
145-page FBI charge sheet contains the names of the defendants in the
multi-billion-dollar fraud case, the names of their indicted
co-conspirators, and those of the un-indicted co-conspirators.
Listing
the objects of the conspiracy, the charge sheet states that, “Beginning
on a date unknown to the Grand Jury, but no later than October 7, 2014,
and continuing through an unknown date, but no earlier than on or about
May 2, 2018, in Los Angeles County, within the Central District of
California, and elsewhere, the defendants and others known and unknown
to the Grand Jury, knowingly conspired:
“a. to conduct and
attempt to conduct, financial transactions, affecting interstate and
foreign commerce, knowing that the property involved in the financial
transactions represented the proceeds of some form of unlawful activity,
which, in fact, involved the proceeds of specified unlawful activity —
namely, wire fraud, in violation of Title 18, United States Code,
Section 1343; mail fraud, in violation of Title 18, United States Code,
Section 1341; and bank fraud, in violation of Title 18, United States
Code, Section 1344(2) — and knowing that the transactions were designed
in whole and in part to conceal and disguise the nature, location,
source, ownership, and control of the proceeds, in violation of Title
18, United States Code, Section 1956(a)(1)(B)(i);
“b. to
transport, transmit, and transfer, and attempt to transport, transmit,
and transfer, funds from a place in the United States to a place outside
of the United States, knowing that the property involved in the
financial transactions represented the proceeds of some form of unlawful
activity, and which property was, in fact, the proceeds of specified
unlawful activity — namely, wire fraud, in violation of Title 18, United
States Code, Section 1343; mail fraud, in violation of Title 18, United
States Code, Section 1341; and bank fraud, in violation of Title 18,
United States Code, Section 1344(2) — and knowing that the transactions
were designed in whole and in part to conceal and disguise the nature,
location, source, ownership, and control of the proceeds, in violation
of Title 18, United States Code, Section 1956(a)(2)(B)(i); and
“c.
to engage and attempt to engage in monetary transactions involving
criminally derived property of a value greater than $10,000, affecting
interstate and foreign commerce, which was derived from specified
unlawful activity — namely, wire fraud, in violation of Title 18, United
States Code, Section 1343; mail fraud, in violation of Title 18, United
States Code, Section 1341; and bank fraud, in violation of Title 18,
United States Code, Section 1344(2) and knowing that the funds
represented the proceeds of some form of unlawful activity, in violation
of Title 18, United States Code, Section 1957.”
The suspects
face 252 counts bordering on fraud, intent to commit fraud,
impersonation and related crimes, according to the introductory
allegation charge sheet.
The Prosecutor added that the United
States of America will seek “forfeiture as part of any sentence,
pursuant to Title 18, United States Code, Sections 982 and 1028 and
Title 28, United States Code, Section 2461(c) in the event of any
defendant’s conviction of the offenses set forth in any of Counts One
Hundred Seventy-One through Two Hundred Fifty-Two of this Indictment.
“Any defendant so convicted shall forfeit to the United States of America the following:
“(a) All right, title and interest in any and all property,
real or personal, constituting, or derived from, any proceeds
obtained, directly or indirectly, as a result of the offense;
” (b) Any personal property used or intended to be used to
commit the offense; and
“(c) To the extent such property is not available for
forfeiture, a sum of money equal to the total value of the property
described in subparagraphs (a) and (b).
“Pursuant to Title 21, United States Code, Section 853(p), as
incorporated by Title 18, United States Code, Sections 982(b) and
1028(g), any defendant so convicted shall forfeit substitute
property, up to the total value of the property described in the
preceding paragraph if, as the result of any act or omission of said
defendant,
the property described in the preceding paragraph, or any portion
thereof: (a) cannot be located upon the exercise of due
diligence; (b) has been transferred, sold to or deposited with a
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