Cybersecurity
Former Air Force members sentenced over BEC scams
Two former US Air Force members received prison terms and restitution orders after prosecutors said they used phishing, spoofed email and stolen credentials to divert business payments.
- Chijioke Timothy Odimegwu and Harafat Mogaji were given a combined 189 months in federal prison.
- Court documents said they carried out the scheme while stationed at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware.
- The Department of Justice said they diverted a wire for more than $1.68 million from a victim in Iowa City, Iowa, into a bank account in Chicago controlled by the conspiracy.
- The department also said they diverted another wire for more than $720,000 from a victim in Ohio and made other attempts against business transfers across the country.
- Odimegwu was ordered to pay $366,617.59 and Mogaji $995,680.45, and both were given three years of supervised release after prison.
Chijioke Timothy Odimegwu and Harafat Mogaji were sentenced after prosecutors said they had taken part in business email compromise and phishing schemes. The case centred on attacks carried out while they were stationed at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware.
According to court documents, they obtained employee email logins through spam and phishing efforts. They then used copied email identities and the stolen credentials to persuade billing staff to change payment details, with money routed to accounts controlled by accomplices in the United States and overseas.
The Department of Justice said the pair, working with others, diverted a wire of more than $1.68 million from a victim in Iowa City, Iowa, to a Chicago account controlled by the conspiracy. It also said they redirected another wire of more than $720,000 from a victim in Ohio.
Odimegwu received 111 months in prison and a restitution order of $366,617.59, while Mogaji received 78 months and a restitution order of $995,680.45. After their prison terms, both men were ordered to serve three years on supervised release.
Named in this story
People
- Chijioke Timothy Odimegwu
- received a 111-month sentence and restitution order
- Harafat Mogaji
- received a 78-month sentence and restitution order
Organisations
- United States Air Force
- was the service the two men had belonged to
Governments and agencies
- Department of Justice
- said the pair diverted large wires and described the case
- Federal Bureau of Investigation
- was cited for its 2025 Internet Crime Report
Places
- Dover Air Force Base
- was where the attacks were carried out from
- Iowa City, Iowa
- was where one victim's wire originated
- Ohio
- was where another victim's wire originated
- Chicago
- was where one bank account used in the scheme was located
How the source tells it
The piece was a largely neutral court report, with a short explanatory aside about business email compromise and some unrelated promotional boilerplate at the end.
No emotive framing was found in the original.