Mr Ponle, alongside
Ramoni Igbalode, also known as Hushpuppi, was arrested in the United Arab
Emirate on June 10 for multiple fraud charges after a raid by operatives of the
Dubai crime unit.
The duo were then
extradited to the United States on July 2.
Mr Ponle, 29, is
currently facing charges bordering on wire fraud conspiracy at a United States
District Court sitting in Illinois.
The court had since
June 25 issued an arrest warrant to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
regarding Mr Ponle’s case after a criminal complaint was filed.
His first appearance
in court was on July 3, after which the preliminary hearing was set for July 16
before Judge Jeffrey T Gilbert.
However, as provided
by a section of the U.S. laws on the release or detention of a defendant
pending trial, Mr Ponle will be remanded in custody until a further order of
the court.
If found guilty, he
is liable to a jail term ranging from 20 to 30 years.
Page Pate, a U.S.
law firm, stated on its website that penalties for wire fraud include a prison
sentence of up to 20 years (30 years if the case involves federal disaster
relief funds or a financial institution), restitution to any victims and a fine
set by the judge.
How he was tracked
Ali Sadiq, a Special
Agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), chronicled how the bureau
tracked down through his online activities.
He said this in a
criminal complaint document filed at the court and obtained by PREMIUM TIMES.
He stated that Mr
Ponle, who often adopted a pseudonym Mark Kain, has defrauded several United
States-based companies through Business Email Compromise (BEC) schemes.
This scheme compromises
legitimate business email accounts through computer intrusion techniques or
social engineering and uses those accounts to cause the unauthorised transfer
of funds.
Techniques for
perpetrating these schemes include phishing, spear phishing, identity theft,
email spoofing, and the use of malware.
“Beginning no later
than January 2019 and continuing until at least September 2019, OLALEKAN JACOB
PONLE conspired with others to engage in BEC schemes to defraud several United
States-based companies. These schemes resulted in attempted and actual losses
to victim companies in the tens of millions of dollars,” the criminal complaint
document read.
As part of the
scheme, he reportedly directed ‘money mules’ in the United States to open bank
accounts in the names of victimised companies.
According to Mr
Sadiq, proceeds from BEC schemes, “ranging from hundreds of thousands of
dollars to millions of dollars”, were then wired by unwitting employees to the
bank accounts opened by Mr Ponle’s mules.
Mr Ponle then
instructed the mules to convert the proceeds to bitcoin (virtual currency) and
to send the proceeds of the BEC schemes to a bitcoin wallet that he owned and
operated.
Bitcoin, a type of
cryptocurrency, is generated and controlled through computer software operating
on a decentralised peer-to-peer network.
Its transactions are
recorded in the Bitcoin blockchain which makes it hard to trace because the
identities of individuals are partially anonymous.
Massive scheme, more findings
In fact, one of
those BEC schemes involved two Chicago-based companies. One was defrauded of
$2.3 million and the other, sent wire transfers totaling $15.3 million.
Preliminary
blockchain analysis done by the FBI indicated that the 29-year-old received at
least 1,494.71506296 bitcoin related to these BEC schemes, valued at over $6
million dollars at the time he received the proceeds.
Finding also
revealed that the money mules in the United States were approached by a person
they knew as “Mark” or “Mark Kain.” Mark later directed them to open bank
accounts in the names of these companies.
Those accounts
received proceeds from the BEC schemes, and on Mark’s instructions, the
money mules
converted proceeds to bitcoin and sent proceeds to Mark.
According to Mr
Sadiq, “Mark Kain” contacted Individual B using telephone number (323) 985-4088
(“the 4088 phone number”).
Mr Sadiq noted that
these telephone details were records obtained from Dingtone, a messaging and
voice call application.
He added that his
review of the chat transcripts from online messaging applications like WhatsApp
showed him how Mr Ponle and his mules transact.
“Mark instructed
Individual B and Individual A to send money to the bitcoin wallet
16AtGJbaxL2kmzx4mW5ocpT2ysTWxmacWn (“the 16AtGJ BTC Wallet”) on at least nine
occasions.
“Records obtained
from Bitpay, a processor of cryptocurrency transactions, indicated that between
approximately September 18, 2015 and November 29, 2016, the 16AtGJ BTC wallet
made five purchases associated with the Gmail account
hustleandbustle@gmail[.]com (the “hustle Gmail account”).
“Based on records
obtained from Apple, an iCloud account (Subject Account 1) was subscribed to by
Jacob Olalekan, listing the 7890 phone number, the hustle Gmail account, and a
physical address in Johannesburg, South Africa.
“Based on my review
of records from Apple, Subject Account 1 contained several identity documents
and photographs of PONLE. These included a photo of a Nigerian passport with a
photo of an individual named Olalekan Jacob Ponle, born in May 1991 in Lagos,
Nigeria, a photo of a United Arab Emirates visa with a photo of an individual
named Olalekan Jacob Ponle with the profession ‘marketing’,” the document read.
The FBI agent
insisted Mr Ponle and his accomplices, gained access to emails and financial
records of these companies to perpetrate fraud.
“Based on the above
information, there is probable cause to believe that, beginning no late than
January 2019 and continuing until at least September 2019, at Chicago, in the
Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division, and elsewhere, PONLE conspired
to commit wire fraud, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1349,” Mr Sadiq said.
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