US court sentences Nigerian to eight years for $1.3m tax fraud scheme
U.S. Court Sentences Nigerian National for Cyber Fraud
BOSTON — A federal court in Boston has sentenced Matthew Akande, a 37-year-old Nigerian national, to eight years in prison for orchestrating a cyber fraud scheme that defrauded the U.S. government of more than $1.3 million through fraudulent tax filings.
U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani issued the sentence on Tuesday, according to a statement from the U.S. government. In addition to his prison term, Akande was ordered to pay $1,393,230 in restitution and will undergo three years of supervised release after completing his sentence.
The court statement detailed that Akande, who resided in Mexico, was extradited to the United States after being arrested at Heathrow Airport in October 2024 at the request of U.S. officials. He arrived in the U.S. on March 5, 2025.
Akande was indicted by a federal grand jury in July 2022 on multiple charges, including conspiracy, wire fraud, and aggravated identity theft. According to prosecutors, from June 2016 to June 2021, he and his accomplices conducted phishing attacks targeting Massachusetts tax preparation firms.
These fraudulent emails, masquerading as client inquiries, were intended to convince recipients to download remote-access trojan malware, specifically a program known as Warzone RAT. This malware allowed the group to access clients’ personal information and previous tax records.
The statement noted that Akande and his associates filed over 1,000 fraudulent tax returns, seeking more than $8.1 million in refunds using stolen personally identifiable information (PII). The refunds were directed to bank accounts opened by co-conspirators in the United States, who then withdrew the funds in cash and transferred a portion to Akande and others in Mexico.
In total, Akande and his co-conspirators managed to obtain over $1.3 million in illicit tax refunds during the five-year scheme.
