New Telegraph

Invictus Obi to spend 10 years in jail for $11m email scam

A Nigerian businessman, Obinwanne Okeke, was on Tuesday jailed for 10 years by a US Federal Court for masterminding an $11 million cyber fraud on a British company. Okeke, popularly known as Invictus Obi, was accused of engaging in a multi-year global business email and computer hacking scheme that caused a staggering $11 million in losses to his victims,”, according to Raj Parekh, Acting US Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, said in a statement after the sentencing.

British Company Unatrac Holding Limited — the export sales office for industrial machinery company Caterpillar — were the victims of an online heist perpetrated by Okeke and his team, who had obtained their login details through phishing emails, the justice department said. “In April 2018, a Unatrac executive fell prey to a phishing email that allowed conspirators to capture login credentials,” according to the statement.

“The conspirators sent fraudulent wire transfer requests and attached fake invoices. Okeke participated in the effort to victimize Unatrac through fraudulent wire transfers totaling nearly $11 million, which was transferred overseas,” the statement added. He flaunted private jets and luxury cars on Instagram. Feds used his posts to link him to alleged cyber crimes Okeke, who was hailed as a promising entrepreneur and appeared on the Forbes magazine ’30 under 30 list,’ had earlier pleaded guilty to the charge in June 2020, after he was arrested during a visit to the US. Okeke, who operated a chain of companies under parent firm Invictus Group — based in Nigeria, was found to have committed a series of wire frauds between 2015 to 2019 along with others. “The conspirators obtained and compiled the credentials of hundreds of victims, including victims in the Eastern District of Virginia,” the US justice department said.

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