Almost one year after a Nigerian national was extradited from Canada and charged with defrauding vendors of office products by “phishing” e-mail login information from government employees, Olumide Ogunremi, a/k/a “Tony Williams,” was sentenced in federal court in Newark. The sentence was announced by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Jersey.
Ogunremi had been indicted Sept. 28, 2018 with one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, and had been extradited to New Jersey on Sept. 26, 2019. According to court records, from July 2013 through December 2013, Ogunremi and other conspirators used phishing attacks on United States government agencies’ email systems. Ogunremi and his conspirators used credentials stolen from government employees to access the employees’ e-mail accounts to place fraudulent orders for office products, typically printer toner cartridges, from vendors who were authorized to do business with U.S. government agencies.
The orders were shipped to addresses in New Jersey that enabled the conspirators to repackage them and ship them overseas.
On June 10, 2014, Abiodun Adejohn, a/k/a “James Williams,” 30, of Nigeria, pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud conspiracy, and was later sentenced to three years in prison.
Ogunremi faced a maximum potential penalty of 20 years in prison and a maximum $250,000 fine. U.S. District Judge Susan Wigenton sentenced him to 36 months in prison, two years of supervised release, and ordered him to pay restitution of $68,618.