14 DAY TRIAL // A total of six individuals – five men and one woman – have been convicted in the UK for being involved in a massive fraud scheme. The fraudsters will remain in custody until they are sentenced, on November 14.
The members of the criminal ring are Adjibola Akinlabi, 26, Damilare Oduwole, 26, Michael Awosile, 27, Tyrone Ellis, 27, Nadine Windley, 26 and Temitope Araoye, 29.
According to the UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA), evidence gathered throughout the investigation shows that the crooks made over £300,000 ($480,000 / €359,000). However, authorities believe the actual losses could be as high as £1 million ($1.6 million / €1.19 million).
So how did they make all that money? They posted fake ads for jobs at companies such as Argos and Harrods on websites like Blue Arrow and Gumtree.
Those who responded to these ads were sent a link via email. The link allegedly led to an online application form, but, in reality, it took victims to a website designed to serve a piece of malware developed by Tyrone Ellis.
As a side note, Ellis is considered one of the UK’s first home-grown financial malware developers.
The Trojan he has developed is capable of recording keystrokes and capturing sensitive information, which it sends back to a server controlled by cybercriminals.
However, this isn’t the only tactic the crooks used to make money. They also used the stolen information to call banks and request new credit cards and PINs. Then, they waited outside the victim’s residence and intercepted the postman.
Another way they made money was by defrauding the emergency cash systems of banks with the aid of illegally obtained security passwords.
Windley worked at Santander Bank. She abused her position to steal customer account data.
The members of the cybercriminal network were charged in October 2012.