A Nigerian man, Matthew A. Akande, has been sentenced to eight years in prison by a federal court in Boston, United States, for orchestrating a cyber fraud scheme that targeted tax preparation firms and led to the theft of over $1.3 million in U.S. government funds.
According to a statement released by the U.S. Department of Justice, Akande, 37, was sentenced by Indira Talwani of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts.
The court also ordered him to pay $1,393,230 in restitution and to serve three years of supervised release after completing his prison term.
Investigators said the fraud occurred between June 2016 and June 2021, when Akande and his accomplices launched phishing attacks against tax preparation firms in Massachusetts.
The emails were disguised as messages from prospective clients and were used to trick recipients into installing malicious remote-access software, including Warzone RAT, which allowed the attackers to infiltrate the firms’ computer networks.
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Using the compromised systems, the group obtained taxpayers’ personally identifiable information and prior-year tax records.
They then filed more than 1,000 fraudulent tax returns, seeking over $8.1 million in refunds from the Internal Revenue Service.
Authorities confirmed that over $1.3 million was successfully paid out into bank accounts controlled by co-conspirators in the United States.
Prosecutors said the funds were withdrawn in cash and portions were transferred to contacts in Mexico at Akande’s direction, while accomplices kept a share for themselves.
Akande was arrested in October 2024 at Heathrow Airport following a request from U.S. authorities and was extradited to the United States on March 5, 2025.
He had earlier been indicted in July 2022 on multiple counts, including conspiracy, wire fraud, unauthorized access to protected computers, theft of government funds, and aggravated identity theft.
Authorities said the sentencing underscores continued international cooperation to combat cybercrime networks that exploit digital systems to defraud governments and private institutions.
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