The United States Department of Justice has disclosed details of a tax fraud operation involving a Nigerian national, Matthew Akande, who was convicted for attempting to obtain more than $8.1m through fraudulent tax refund claims targeting over 1,000 Americans.
In a statement issued on Thursday, US authorities confirmed that Akande received an eight-year prison sentence after investigators uncovered the scheme, which yielded about $1.3m in illegal refunds before it was halted.
Officials said the 37-year-old suspect operated from Mexico before his arrest at Heathrow Airport in October 2024, following an extensive probe into the cybercrime network.
According to prosecutors, Akande and his collaborators carried out the fraud between June 2016 and June 2021 by submitting falsified tax returns using stolen personal and financial information belonging to US taxpayers.
Investigations revealed that confidential records were obtained from tax preparation firms in Massachusetts through phishing messages and unauthorised access to computer systems.
Authorities explained that the emails were crafted to appear as legitimate business requests, deceiving employees into downloading malware identified as Warzone RAT, which enabled the perpetrators to access clients’ sensitive data.
Using the compromised information, fraudulent tax filings were submitted with refund payments directed to bank accounts controlled by accomplices within the United States.
The Justice Department stated that once the Internal Revenue Service processed the refunds, the funds were withdrawn and channelled to associates in Mexico, while members of the group shared the proceeds.
Akande was later indicted on multiple offences, including wire fraud, money laundering, identity theft and theft of government property, before being extradited to the US for trial in a Boston federal court.
A US District Court judge, Indira Talwani, subsequently sentenced him to eight years in custody, along with three years of supervised release, and ordered restitution amounting to $1,393,230.