An 11-count indictment accuses Efeturi Ariawhorai, also known as Efeturi Simeon, 35, and Ikenna Nwajiaku, 41, of conspiring to commit wire fraud, and aggravated identity theft.
The two are still at large. Ariawhorai was detained in Italy in November but managed to escape his home detention before being sent to Oregon. It’s thought that he resides in the United Arab Emirates. Federal detectives believe that Nwajiaku resides in or close to Lagos, Nigeria.
According to district authorities at the time, a fraudster acting as one of the district’s construction contractors duped staff members into approving the $2.9 million payment. This resulted in the attempted theft from Portland Public Schools.
The crime was discovered while the millions were still in the con artist’s bank account, and according to officials, the majority of the money was quickly transferred back to the district’s Wells Fargo account.
The indictment claimed that the alleged fraud by the two defendants took place between August 2019 and December 2020 and was directed at 20 different organizations, school districts, or hospitals for a total of around $25.2 million. Investigators determined that 15 groups actually lost $6.2 million.
According to the indictment, there were further victims, including school districts in California, Ohio, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Texas; colleges and institutions in Georgia, Wyoming, Idaho, Florida, and Delaware; and hospitals in Indiana, Minnesota, and Michigan. According to the indictment, two unnamed school districts in Texas and a university in Delaware both suffered losses of $1.8 million.
According to the FBI, Ariawhorai and Nwajiaku would send emails to businesses, pretending to be representatives of the businesses or businesspeople doing business with them, and then persuade the businesses or schools to send money to bank accounts that belonged to third parties acting on their behalf by Ariawhorai and Nwajiaku.
Investigators claim that they registered internet domain names with subtle modifications in order to deceive the victim organizations while concealing the scam with bogus names, virtual private networks, and leased infrastructure.
According to Assistant U.S. Attorney Quinn Harrington, head of the Oregon U.S. Attorney’s Office’s cyber and national security branch, federal law enforcement officers are seeking to recover money that was inadvertently transmitted to unidentified bank accounts.
Ramsey claimed that the loss of about $3 million to the Portland school system was among the stolen cash that the FBI was able to recover and freeze.
