General News of Sunday, 4 July 2021
Source: www.ghanaweb.live
2021-07-04US names Tamale's ‘sakawa king’ Maxwell Peter among top 30 online fraudsters
Maxwell Peter is on the list of fraudsters
• A notorious fraudster from Tamale has been mentioned in a list of the top 30 fraudsters in the US
• Maxwell Peter was arrested and extradited to the US in August 2020
• A federal grand jury in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Tennessee indicted Maxwell Peter in 2017
The United States of
Read full articleAmerica has named among some 30 online fraudsters on its top wanted list, a 28-year-old Ghanaian resident of Tamale, Maxwell Atugba Abayeta.
Known more popularly as Maxwell Peter, the suspect, who was arrested and extradited to the US in August 2020, has been indicted and charged with wire fraud, money laundering, computer fraud and aggravated identity theft, reports mynewsgh.com.
With his name making it to this list, it makes him one of the top names from West Africa who have been involved in massive fraud.
This was contained in a communication from the United States Department of Justice website sighted by MyNewsGh.com which read in part, “The United States Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Tennessee is prosecuting numerous individuals in connection with an international fraud perpetrated, in part, through online dating websites. If you have sent or been asked to send money to or on behalf of the following, you may be a victim in this case.”
On August 23, 2017, a federal grand jury in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Tennessee indicted Maxwell Peter, whose given name is Maxwell Atugba Abayeta, and others with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering, conspiracy to commit computer fraud and aggravated identity theft, the report said.
Also contained in the indictment was the allegation that a series of intrusions into the servers and email systems of a Memphis-based real estate company in June and July 2016 were perpetuated by various Africa-based co-conspirators committed, or caused them to be committed.
“Using sophisticated anonymization techniques, including the use of spoofed email addresses and Virtual Private Networks, the co-conspirators identified large financial transactions, initiated fraudulent email correspondence with relevant business parties and then redirected closing funds through a network of U.S.-based money mules to final destinations in Africa,” the report stated.
