Mirror Trading International’s Cornelius Johannes Steynberg and his $3.4 Billion USD Default Judgement
Some of you may have heard that students in UAB's Investigating Online Crimes class have been researching Crypto Investment Scam websites. You can find a list of some of the sites we've identified so far on URLScan.io using our tag "CryptoScam" (as of this writing we have 3600+ sites on the ... Read More
Watching a Crypto Investment Scam WhatsApp Group
If your online accounts are like mine, almost every day I'm "force joined" to a new Telegram group where a crypto investment scammer tries to tell everyone how great their scam investment site is. This week, I started getting added to WhatsApp Crypto Investment Scams. I thought I'd share the experience ... Read More
SIM Swapping, Crypto Theft, and Sentencing in the United States
As you know from the title of my blog, "CyberCrime & Doing Time," I'm very interested in cybercrime and the criminal justice system. This week I've been looking at SIM Swapping cases and wanted to share what I learned from reading the sentencing memos sentencing transcript for Ricky Handschumacher. Ricky ... Read More
The new DOJ Law Enforcement Crypto Reports (TL;DR)
TL;DR? Good news! I read them for you! On 15SEP2022, the Department of Justice released their report "The Role of Law Enforcement in Detecting, Investigating, and Prosecuting Criminal Activity Related to Digital Assets" (66 pages). The first of the nine reports ordered by President Biden's Executive Order 14067 "Ensuring Responsible Development ... Read More
Chidozie Collins Obasi – COVID Fraud & Work at Home Scams
On September 9, 2022, the FBI's Philadelphia office asked for help locating Chidozie Collins Obasi. OBASI is charged with being part of a conspiracy to steal more than $30 Million related to COVID Fraud out of New York. How did the scam work? Much of it goes back to a ... Read More
Three UK-based Nigerian BEC Scammers Used Construction Intelligence Service to Target Victims
On 10AUG2022 three Nigerians were extradited from the UK to the US to face charges related to their roles in conducting Business Email Compromise (BEC) attacks against a number of US-based businesses.43-year old Oludayo Kolawole John Adeagbo, 40-year old Donald Ikenna Echeazu, and 42-year old Olabanji Egbinola were brought to ... Read More
Please stop calling all Crypto Scams "Pig Butchering!"
Lately there has been a media-driven craze in the fraud community to call every crypto-investment scam "Pig Butchering." I hope you will join me in canceling that term after you read this article.The term "Pig Butchering" comes from the Chinese term 杀猪盘 (Shā zhū pán or "butchering plate.") While the term ... Read More
Nigerian Money Transfer Company Linked to Romance Scam Money Laundering
On July 7, 2022, the US Attorney for the Northern District of Texas announced that Ping Express had been found guilty. Prior to this, their CEO Anslem Oshionebo*, their COO Opeyemi Odeyale (now imprisoned at the Danbury Federal Correctional Institute, 60177-177), their IT Manager Aleoghena Okhumale (now imprisoned at the ... Read More
That Job Your Co-Worker Emailed You About? Yeah … No.
My niece, Anna, is a school teacher in the Birmingham Public School system. Another teacher in the system got phished and the phisher sent an email to a bunch of other teachers, offering them a summer job as an administrative assistant, earning $500 weekly for working only 8 hours. Tempting? ... Read More
Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine and CISA/FBI’s New Era of Transparency
BLUF: Bottom Line Up FrontI want to start this post with the most important thing right up top:The CISA.gov/Shields-Up page starts with this statement. PLEASE take it seriously, and escalate to your top management:"Russia’s invasion of Ukraine could impact organizations both within and beyond the region, to include malicious cyber activity against ... Read More
