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By John Ogunsemore
A Nigerian, James Junior Aliyu, has been sentenced to 90 months (7 years and six months) in prison by a court in the United States for his role in a $2.4 million business email compromise (BEC) scam.
The US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) disclosed this in a post on its X page on Saturday.
In an August 2025 statement, US Attorney for the District of Maryland, Kelly O. Hayes announced Aliyu, 30, had pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering.
He was residing in South Africa, where he was arrested in July 2022, at the time of his criminal conduct, Hayes said.
Aliyu, who was extradited from South Africa to the US, was said to be the last of three defendants to plead guilty to his role in a business email compromise (BEC) scheme.
Eight other defendants previously pled guilty in the District of Maryland in separate cases related to the same conspiracy.
On June 24, 2019, a US federal grand jury returned an indictment, charging the Nigerian trio of Aliyu, Kosi Goodness Simon-Ebo, 30, and Henry Onyedikachi Echefu, 31, for conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering.
They all resided in South Africa at the time of the crimes.
Federal authorities unsealed the indictment on July 6, 2022, upon the defendants’ arrests outside of the US.
All three were extradited to the United States from outside the country to face their federal charges, Hayes added.
The statement reads, “According to his plea agreement, from February 2017 until at least July 2017, Aliyu conspired with others to perpetrate a BEC scheme. Specifically, Aliyu and his co-conspirators, including co-conspirators residing in Maryland, gained unauthorized access to email accounts associated with individuals and businesses that they targeted.
“The co-conspirators sent false wiring instructions to the victims’ email accounts from “spoofed” emails — accounts associated with forged sender addresses — to deceive the victims into sending money to bank accounts controlled by the scheme’s perpetrators, which are called “drop accounts.”
“Additionally, during the same timeframe, Aliyu and his co-conspirators plotted to commit money laundering. They conspired to disburse the fraudulently obtained funds into the drop accounts and to other accounts by initiating account transfers, withdrawing cash, obtaining cashier’s checks, and writing checks to other individuals and entities to hide the true ownership and source of the assets. As detailed in the plea agreement, the intended loss for transactions Aliyu was directly involved in was at least $4,162,211.65. The actual loss resulting from these transactions was at least $1,570,475. Aliyu directly controlled at least $1,194,565 of the funds they obtained from victims.
“According to the plea agreement, Aliyu is required to pay a money judgment of at least $1,194,565, and restitution in the full amount of the victims’ losses, which the parties agree is at least $2,389,130.”
