A 23-year-old self-confessed Nigerian cyber fraudster and drug-dealer was handed a 5 year jail sentence in the UK on Tuesday January 28, following his arrest after being nabbed with 49 rocks of crack cocaine in Colchester.
Dan Aiyegbusi who pleaded guilty to five separate counts of money laundering, totalling £41,150 and possession with intent to supply Class A drugs crack cocaine and Class B drugs cannabis after being arraigned before Southwark Crown Court, confessed that he has never worked a day in his life. He also admitted that he colluded with organised hackers in the UK and from foreign countries to launder stolen money following an investigation by the Met Police.
The Nigerian man however denied three counts of money laundering totalling £2,167,410 and was subsequently found not guilty in relation to this after a trial in December 2019.
During his trial, the court heard that in April 2018 a Facebook account was identified in the name of ‘Miyuwa Oluwafemi’ which was a pseudonym used by Aiyegbusi. The account was used to advertise compromised online bank accounts, with the username and password often having been acquired through cyber-dependent crime such as ‘phishing’. Other Facebook postings from Aiyegbusi advertised the ‘cashing out’ of online banking fraud.
While in Met Police’s custody, detectives were able to gain access to other mobile phones controlled by him, which contained evidence to illustrate his involvement in the county lines supply of Class A drugs.
Detective Inspector Phil McInerney, from the Met’s Central Specialist Crime – Cyber Crime Unit, said:
“Aiyegbusi didn’t have a care in the world as he stole people’s hard-earned cash and then flaunted it all over social media to boost his ego and brag about it.
“Aiyegbusi admitted in court that he had never worked a day in his life, instead acquiring huge sums of money from innocent members of the public, through large-scale cyber-enabled fraud committed across the UK banking sector.
“I would like to thank our partners in the banking sector and the Cyber Defence Alliance for their support and assistance during this investigation.”
