Olalekan Ponle, popularly known as Woodberry, has entered a guilty plea to a fraud charge at the United States District Court for Northern Illinois. He was accused of defrauding a company in New York of almost $188,000 through online scams involving business email compromise schemes. Woodberry was initially charged alongside Ramon Abbas, alias Hushpuppi, for extensive international online scams in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates. The two men were flown to the United States to face separate trials.
Hushpuppi initially pleaded not guilty but later changed his plea to guilty in April 2021. This was just before a full-blown trial was to begin. The US district court for Central California charged and sentenced him to 11 years in jail. Furthermore, they ordered him to pay $1.7 million in restitution in November 2022.
Woodberry, on the other hand, maintained his innocence for over two years before finally entering a guilty plea. He confessed to defrauding a company in New York, identified as “Victim Company B“, of almost $188,000. He did it through online scams involving business email comprise schemes. The sentencing date for Woodberry has been set for 11 July 2023.
Judge Robert Gettleman accepted the defendant’s change of plea in a ruling delivered on 6 April.
He referred the case to the Probation Department for a pre-sentence investigation and report. This will guide his decision on the appropriate sentence to impose. The judge also gave the US government 60 days before the sentencing date to provide the Probation Office and the courtroom deputy a list of victims and their full current contact information to obtain the court’s order of restitution.
Woodberry’s case started with one or more of his co-schemers gaining unauthorized access to Victim Company B’s email account on or before 16 January 2019. They hacked into the email account by fraudulently obtaining the account credentials. Once they had access to the email account, the co-schemers changed certain security settings in the email account. These changes helped them hide their activity from the actual email account user.
On 16 January 2019, an email was sent from the compromised Victim Company B’s email account to another email account of the company. The email contained a request that a $188,191.50 payment be made to Victim Company B’s supplier. The email contained instructions that the money be sent via wire transfer to a bank account which was set up by Woodberry. He knew that he had no right to the money and that the email was intended to defraud Victim Company B into paying money owed to the supplier to an account controlled by him rather than the supplier.
As a result of the email, approximately $188,191.50 was sent to the fraudulent account that Woodberry had set up.
He acknowledged that the wire was processed through the Federal Reserve System. It was also sent from an account held in New York to an account held in Nashville, Tennessee. Nine days before he requested payment through Victim Company B’s compromised email account on 16 January 2019, Woodberry set up the fraudulent bank account with which he received the proceeds of the fraud.
Woodberry’s case shows that international online scams continue to pose a significant threat. Law enforcement agencies worldwide are also stepping up efforts to bring perpetrators to justice. The guilty plea entered by Woodberry serves as a warning to other cybercriminals involved in such schemes. When caught, they will be held accountable for their actions.
