A United States court has sentenced 37-year-old Nigerian, Matthew Akande, to eight years in prison for stealing taxpayers’ information to carry out a $1.3 million tax fraud scheme.
Gatekeepers News reports that the sentence, handed down by US District Court Judge Indira Talwani in Boston, will be followed by three years of supervised release. Akande was also ordered to pay $1,393,230 in restitution to the victims.
Akande, who was based in Mexico, was arrested in October 2024 at London’s Heathrow Airport at the request of the US authorities and extradited to the United States on March 5, 2025.
He faced multiple charges, including conspiracy to gain unauthorized access to protected computers, wire fraud, theft of government money, money laundering, and aggravated identity theft.
According to US prosecutors, between June 2016 and June 2021, Akande orchestrated a scheme with co-conspirators to steal personally identifiable information (PII) from taxpayers through phishing attacks and computer intrusions targeting Massachusetts tax preparation firms.
Fraudulent emails sent to five firms impersonated prospective clients, tricking staff into downloading remote access trojan (RAT) malware, including the Warzone RAT.
The malware allowed Akande to access clients’ prior-year tax records and other sensitive data, which were then used to file more than 1,000 fraudulent tax returns over five years.
The illicit refunds, totaling over $1.3 million, were directed to bank accounts opened by co-conspirators in the United States. Some of the stolen funds were transferred to third parties in Mexico under Akande’s instructions, while others were kept by his accomplices.
The US government said the scheme targeted taxpayers’ sensitive data to unlawfully claim refunds, highlighting the growing threat of cyber-enabled tax fraud.
Authorities emphasised that the sentence sends a strong warning that identity theft and fraudulent access to government systems will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
