There’s an update to the data breach involving the University of Northern Iowa. As reported previously, Bernard Ogie Oretekor (aka Emmanuel Libs) was charged in an identity theft tax refund fraud scheme that impacted 100 UNI faculty members.
Now KWWL reports that he will plead guilty and the charges will be transferred to California, where he is also facing charges.
Oretekor, a Nigerian who was seeking U.S. citizenship, has been facing charges in a number of states, but it’s still not clear how the UNI data were acquired in the scheme. An affidavit in the California case outlines an email account takeover scheme and “Nigerian scam” allegedly used by the defendant, but there’s no mention in that case of Iowa residents becoming victims of tax refund fraud, and there’s no actual complaint for the now-closed Iowa case that has been transferred to California. There’s only an information that alleges one individual had their information misused as part of a tax refund fraud scheme.