A Kenyan man is to be sentenced in October this year after pleading guilty to fraudulently receiving $749,158.37 from the University of California San Diego (UCSD).
Mr Amis Hassan Raage received that money in a computer phishing scheme, which he pleaded guilty to during his trial.
He will be sentenced before US District Judge Gonzalo P. Curiel on October 11, 2019.
Hassan Raage will be sentenced on the charge of conspiracy to commit Wire Fraud, in violation of Title 18 United States Code, Sections 1349.
The offence attracts a maximum penalty of twenty years in prison.
Daily Nation reported that on July 23, 2018, the UCSD received an email from a fraudulent Dell email account instructing the institution to redirect its payments meant for Dell equipment and services to Raage’s Wells Fargo bank account in Minnesota, US.
The university believed that the email was from a legitimate Dell employee and so followed the instructions and redirected payment.
Co-conspirator from Kenya
But the email actually originated from one of Raage’s co-conspirators in Kenya, the Daily Nation reported.
The reporting claimed that from August 8 through September 12, 2018, UCSD sent Raage 28 payments totalling $749,158.37.
But the university after finding out that the payments were being made to the wrong person then stopped the payment.
Raage and his co-conspirators defrauded another university in Pennsylvania of $123,643.77.
They used the same tactic asking for the redirecting of the university’s Dell payments to a bank account in Minnesota again controlled by Raage.
The university was alerted that the payments were being made to a fraudulent persons and then the payments were stopped.
Raage’s accounts were frozen by his bank forcing him to flee to Kenya on September 22, 2018.
He was however arrested on May 7, 2019, and extradited back to the United States to face prosecution.
Source: Africafeeds.com
