A Nigerian entrepreneur who was nominated for Africa's most prestigious award for businessmen has been imprisoned in the United States for masterminding a multimillion-dollar cyber-fraud scheme.
Obinwanne Okeke headed a criminal team that used email-based cyber-attacks to steal credentials from hundreds of victims from approximately 2015 to 2019. The data they swiped was used to target companies with fraudulent wire-transfer requests and fake invoices.
British company Unatrac Holding Limited, the export sales office for American Fortune 100 corporation Caterpillar, was among Okeke's victims.
A Unatrac executive unwittingly revealed their login credentials to Okeke's criminal organization after falling victim to a phishing email in April 2018.