14 DAY TRIAL // Twelve individuals have been indicted for their roles as members of a criminal network that used insider information to defraud banks with over $10 million.
Seven of the suspects were arrested in Minnesota earlier this week, while the rest had previously been taken into custody in California.
Some of the people named as defendants are former bank employees who are accused of stealing customer information and selling it to other co-conspirators with the purpose of being used to open fraudulent bank and credit card accounts.
The investigation was conducted by the Minnesota Financial Crimes Task Force, an inter-agency task force with representatives from the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Homeland Investigations, the Internal Revenue Service-Criminal Investigations Division, the U.S. Secret Service, the Social Security Administration and local police departments.
The indictment charges Julian Nosa Okeayainneh, age 42, of Colton, California; Oladipo Sowunmi Coker, age 29, Nana Bempah Osei-Tutu, age 35, Fata Leeta Sarnor David, age 38, and Olugenya Temidayo Adeniran, age 35, all of Minneapolis; Fawsiyo Hassan Farah, age 42, and Sundayga Dexter Roberts, age 47, both of Brooklyn Park; Charles Amankwah Akuffo, age 30, no known address; Adetokunbo Olubunmi Adejumo, age 34, of Maple Grove; Jude Obira Okafor, age 44, of Fridley; Jonathan Sie Earley, age 48, of Brooklyn Center; and Charles Tubman Dwamina, age 46, of Lino Lakes, with at least one count of bank fraud conspiracy.
In addition, all of them are charged with various counts of bank fraud, aggravated identity theft, mail fraud, wire fraud, money laundering and trafficking in false identification.
The network operated from 2006 to March 2011 in multiple states. Victims include American Express, Associated Bank, Bank of America, Capital One, Guaranty Bank, JP Morgan Chase Bank, TCF Bank, US Bank, Wachovia Bank, Washington Mutual, and Wells Fargo Bank.
Other individuals had been charged and even pleaded guilty to offenses in connection with this conspiracy prior to this week's indictment.
"Individuals must take care to protect their personal identification information. They also must ask questions of their financial institutions, and those institutions need to examine their security measures on an ongoing basis. Finally, anyone who sees suspicious activity, whether a bank employee or a customer, must report that activity immediately," said U.S. Attorney B. Todd Jones. [pdf]