Gabriel Dillard reports:
Two men were indicted by a federal grand jury Thursday with six counts of wire fraud stemming from a $1.6 million phishing scheme against the County of Fresno.
Jafaar September Nyangoro, 52, of Franklin, Tennessee, and Peter Bah Acha, 45 of Berlin, Germany, are accused of secretly gaining control of an email account used by the finance director of a Visalia nonprofit to send fraudulent invoices for payment through Automated Clearing House (ACH) transfers.
Between Sept. 24, 2020, and Oct. 13, 2020, the County of Fresno initiated several ACH transfers totaling more than $1.6 million to Nyangoro’s bank account instead of the nonprofit’s account, according to court documents.
“Posing as the finance director, they fraudulently represented to the County of Fresno that the nonprofit’s bank account information had changed and that payments should be sent to an account at a different bank that Nyangoro had recently opened,” according to a DOJ news release. “The County of Fresno updated the nonprofit’s bank account information accordingly.”
The nonprofit was identified as Turning Point Solutions of Central California in court documents. It provides behavioral/mental health and substance abuse disorder services.
Read more at The Business Journal.
According to court filings, Nyangoro was arrested on May 5, 2025 in Nashville, Tennessee. Acha has been indicted, but has not been arrested. The case is USA v. Nyangoro et al in the Eastern District of California, Case 1:2025cr00093.