Authorities in the US State of Colorado have arrested a Nigerian, one Sherifdeen Mogaji, for allegedly stealing $850,000 from the Boulder Valley School District in an email scam
Colorado’s Boulder County Sheriff’s Office says 39-year-old Mogaji committed the crime some three ago.
Mogaji was, however, arrested on 21 February 2020 and booked into the Boulder County Jail on suspicion of $100,000 to $999,000 computer crime and forgery.
The arrest affidavit states that Mogaji used a New York driver’s license number to open a TD Bank account where the funds were deposited.
The DMV photo was used in comparison with the surveillance photo of the suspect opening the bank account, according to the arrest documents.
The arrest documents also state that Mogaji spent around $371,000 in a few months and wired money to himself in Nigeria. He also spent $31,000 on student loan payments, according to the documents.
The district first realized the scam when the contractor, Adolfson and Peterson Construction, asked for payments that already had been made.
The district said a sophisticated email that included a forged signature was sent to its office asking for a form to change payment routing information.
The district then filled out the form and made four payments to a fraudulent account, which totalled $852,733.83, according to the arrest affidavit.
Authorities were able to recover about $500,000 by freezing the fraudulent account. The district said insurance covered another $200,000, leaving the district with $172,000 stolen.
