The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has announced that a Nigerian national, James Junior Aliyu, has been sentenced to 90 months in prison for his role in a wire fraud and money laundering conspiracy involving the hacking of business email systems.
In a statement released on Saturday, ICE said Aliyu was convicted for participating in a business email compromise scheme and would serve his prison term before being deported from the United States upon completion of his sentence.
The agency disclosed that Aliyu was extradited from South Africa to face trial and was also ordered to forfeit $1.2 million and pay $2.4 million in restitution to victims.
According to ICE, special agents from its Homeland Security Investigations offices in Maryland and South Africa collaborated with international partners to investigate the case.
Details from a 2025 report by the U.S. Department of Justice showed that the 30-year-old had earlier pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering as part of a coordinated business email compromise (BEC) scheme.
Authorities said Aliyu was the last of three defendants to plead guilty in connection with the conspiracy, while eight other suspects had earlier entered guilty pleas in separate but related cases in the District of Maryland.
Court filings indicated that a federal grand jury returned an indictment against Aliyu and two others—Kosi Goodness Simon-Ebo and Henry Onyedikachi Echefu—in June 2019. The indictment was later unsealed in July 2022 following their arrests outside the United States and subsequent extradition.
Investigators said the syndicate gained unauthorised access to email accounts belonging to businesses and individuals and sent spoofed wiring instructions to victims, diverting funds into accounts controlled by members of the group before laundering the proceeds through transfers, withdrawals and cashier’s checks to conceal their origin.
According to prosecutors, the intended loss linked to transactions involving Aliyu exceeded $4.16 million, while the actual loss stood at over $1.57 million. Authorities also said he directly controlled at least $1.19 million from the fraudulent proceeds.
Officials of the U.S. Attorney’s Office commended the collaboration between American and South African law enforcement agencies, noting that the case highlighted the scale of international cooperation required to combat cyber-enabled financial crimes.
