14 DAY TRIAL // The UK’s recently launched National Crime Agency (NCA) has announced the sentencing of its first offender. The conviction is the result of an investigation carried out by the agency’s National Cyber Crime Unit (NCCU).
27-year-old Olukunle Babatunde was sentenced to five years and six month in prison after pleading guilty to conspiracy to defraud UK financial institutions and their customers of £751,229 ($1.2 million / €886,000).
In addition, Babatunde pled guilty to conspiracy to remove and conceal criminal property to the value of £64,535 ($102,000 / €76,000). In this criminal plot he was aided by another individual, 25-year-old Tamar Abdulhamid.
The two were arrested as part of an investigation into the distribution of stolen financial data. They used phishing emails to trick unsuspecting Internet users into handing over their bank login information.
“This is an excellent result built on the joint working of precursor agencies and has involved the examination of a large number of data, resulting in 765 victim accounts being identified,” noted Andy Archibald, head of the NCCU.