Cybercriminal sentenced to five years for Money Laundering

• Bolanle Adeosun Contributed Photo

On January, 25, cybercriminal Bolanle Adeosun, 34, a Nigerian national living in Maryland, was sentenced to the minimum sentence of five years for the first degree felony of Money Laundering greater than $300,000. The other two first degree felony charges, Fraudulently Securing Document Execution and Theft of Property, $300,000 or more, were dismissed by Judge Bauknight of the 24th Judicial Court in a plea bargain with DeWitt County District Attorney Rob Lassmann.

Each of the felony charges Adeosun was originally indicted on are punishable by 5 to 99 years in a correctional facility and a fine up to $10,000. There were no fines assessed in this sentencing and the District Attorney did request that parole not be considered. On June 14, 2022, a county employee responded to an email from a cybercriminal posing as a court-approved vendor, asking to change account information. This change would affect where the future payments of the vendors invoices would be sent.

The court approved a payment of an invoice on June 27, 2022 and an electronic payment was made on the same day to the new bank account.

On July 5, 2022, the DeWitt County Auditor, Carrie Rea, became aware of the fact the account the payment was made to was unverified. Further investigation revealed that the vendor had not received the recent payments.

According to Judge Daryl Fowler, the payment of $305,301.75 was made to a Bank of America account in Maryland. From there, the funds were transferred to other institutions outside of the United States.

Lieutenant Bethany Hobbs of the DeWitt County Sheriff’s Office immediately began an investigation of the crime on July 5, 2022. She discovered that a Nigerian citizen residing in Maryland was the owner of the unverified bank account and deemed him to be the prime suspect in the crime using bank records obtained through a subpoena issued by the District Attorney’s office on July 6, 2022.

A court order was issued by 377th State District Judge Eli Garza after Lieutenant Hobbs presented probable cause evidence and the existence of a bank account containing the stolen funds. This order made it possible to freeze the bank account( s) controlled by the suspect, thereby eventually returning the stolen funds to the county.

Lieutenant Hobbs then requested a second subpoena to obtain additional bank records of the Nigerian suspect from the District Attorney’s office on August 15, 2022. The request was granted on January 5, 2023. The records she received included a transaction history of several hundred million dollars moving in and out of accounts in other financial institutions controlled by the suspect in the month of June 2022. Copies of these transactions were forwarded to the Federal Bureau of Investigations.

The county filed a claim with their insurance carrier for their cybercrime loss and received a benefit payment that helped to offset the loss. The insurance company was reimbursed in February 2023, after the DeWitt County District Attorney’s office was successful in recovering the stolen funds.

The District Attorney asked Judge Bauknight to consider the plea deal based on several factors.

The dismissals of two of the charges gave the defendant an incentive to plead guilty. Since the D.A. ‘s office was able to recover the stolen funds; they felt it was in the best interest of the County to offer the plea deal, thereby saving the County the cost of a trial.

There were also problems with the evidence; the confession would have probably been deemed inadmissible as the defendant had inquired about an attorney and the questioning continued.

When asked about the plea bargain, DeWitt County District Attorney, Rob Lassman stated, “The defendant gave viable defenses that the State would have had to disprove in order to obtain a conviction. Bringing in witnesses from Maryland would have been impossible, especially with our budget cuts. Normally, our drug fund would cover these types of extraordinary expenses. However, our drug fund is committed to salaries with our DeWitt County budget cuts.”

D.A. Lassman concluded, “The plea was in the best interest of justice for everyone involved. Especially considering that my office recovered the funds for the County.”