Peter Okoeguale, a 33 year old Nigerian, has been sentenced to
20 months in jail for defrauding thousands of pounds from innocent
computer users around the world through the use of the infamous
Nigerian email
scam.
Okoeguale is the first person to be prosecuted in North Wales
for what is known as advance fee fraud, and Judge John Rogers QC
recommended that he be deported back to Nigeria once the sentence
has been served.
UK authorities found in Okoeguale's possession programs to scan
websites for email addresses for the purpose of bombarding them
with unsolicited email - also known as spam. Police officers were
able to trace 11 victims, including one in Scotland who lost up to
£20,000, and a retired 72-year-old American businessman who was
defrauded of $46,500.
"The Nigerian letter scam is simple robbery - the emails aim to
mislead and defraud innocent computer users out of their cash",
said Carole Theriault, security consultant at Sophos. "This is a
serious crime that now has serious consequences. We hope this
sentence will make other email fraudsters think twice before they
spam out their lies."
According to the National Criminal Intelligence Service (NCIS),
the "419 fraud" - named after the relevant section of the Nigerian
penal code, refers to unsolicited mail in which the author purports
to be a senior government or central bank official who has
over-inflated a contract. In return for help smuggling money out of
the country, the recipient of email is offered a significant
financial reward. At first no money is requested but, once a victim
has been drawn in, requests are made from the fraudster for
assistance with legal and administrative costs.
"This is not the first computer criminal in North Wales to be
sentenced to jail," continued Theriault.
In January 2003 Simon Vallor, a twenty-two year old web designer
from Llandudno, received a two year custodial
sentence for his viruses which were said to have infected at
least 27,000 PCs in 42 countries.
Sophos recommends companies protect their email with a consolidated solution to protect themselves
against spam.
More than 100 million users in 150 countries rely on Sophos as the best protection against complex threats and data loss. Sophos is committed to providing security and data protection solutions that are simple to manage, deploy and use and that deliver the industry's lowest total cost of ownership. Sophos offers award-winning encryption, endpoint security, web, email, and network access control solutions backed by SophosLabs - a global network of threat intelligence centers. With more than two decades of experience, Sophos is regarded as a leader in security and data protection by top analyst firms and has received many industry awards.
Sophos is headquartered in Boston, US and Oxford, UK. More information is available at www.sophos.com.