A United Kingdom citizen pleaded guilty Wednesday to conspiracy to commit wire fraud in a cyber-enabled business email compromise fraud scheme that targeted Virginia Commonwealth University.
According to court documents, Olabanji Egbinola, 43, of London, participated in a BEC scheme, also known as “cyber-enabled financial fraud,” a sophisticated scam that typically targets employees with access to the finances of a business or organization that regularly perform large wire transfer payments.
Using technological means and social engineering techniques, BEC conspirators impersonate an employee with a company that has ongoing contracts with the targeted victim. BEC conspirators then trick employees of the victim organization to change bank accounts for upcoming transaction to a bank account that the conspirators control or have access to.
As part of his guilty plea, Egbinola admitted that he impersonated an employee named “Rachel Moore” of the Kjellstrom + Lee Construction Company of Richmond, which had an ongoing construction project with VCU. From September 2018 through December 2018, over the course of multiple emails, Egbinola tricked VCU to change bank accounts for an upcoming payment to Kjellstrom + Lee.
On Dec. 20, 2018, a payment intended for Kjellstrom + Lee in the amount of $469,819.44 was transferred from a bank account controlled by VCU to a Bank of Hope account in Los Angeles, California, that the conspirators controlled. Very little of that money was recovered.
Egbinola is scheduled to be sentenced on Feb. 13. He faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison.
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