Federal court jails man in fraudulent tax refund scheme

Nigerian national Matthew Abiodun Akande has been sentenced to eight years in prison after pleading guilty to several federal charges related to a phony tax refund scheme that targeted tax preparation firms and fraudulently claimed government refunds, reports CyberScoop.

According to court records, the 37-year-old man worked with at least four co-conspirators to breach U.S. tax preparation firms and use stolen sensitive data to file over 1,000 fraudulent tax returns for five years. Four Massachusetts-based tax preparation firms were identified as victims in the indictment after employees were targeted with phishing emails that tricked them into installing remote access trojan malware, such as Warzone RAT.

Akande and his alleged co-conspirators arranged for the fraudulent tax refunds to be funneled into U.S. bank accounts. The prosecutors said the false filings sought more than $8.1 million in refunds, and the group generated fraudulent tax refunds of over $1.3 million. Akanda's charges included aggravated identity theft, theft of government money, wire fraud, and unauthorized access to protected computers.