Kazeem Akinwale alias Ola Gapiano has been indicted in a UK Court for several counts of money laundering and fraud schemes. The prolific money launderer who moved millions of pounds gotten from invoice redirection fraud schemes for dozens of crime syndicates across the globe was jailed in London on Tuesday where he would now serve 9 years in jail.
Kazeem is convicted for transferring and concealing more than £6 million stolen from more than hundred businesses worldwide from 2013 to 2017 majorly through bank accounts opened in Great Britain.
Kazeem managed a complex and “sophisticated” international money laundering scheme where he orchestrated funds transfers gotten from fraud schemes into accounts opened by money mules and ordering those individuals to withdraw the cash.
Judge Mark Dennis told Akinwale at the sentencing hearing Tuesday “This was sophisticated, organized and international offending. The evidence shows the international range of [your] reputation and of the frauds you were involved in.”
The NCA was able to make an arrest by linking an IP address used to access the intended beneficiary’s account to his home in southeast London, from which investigators recovered a laptop and two smartphones containing a “money launderer’s treasure trove” of information.
The trove contained login credentials for more than 200 accounts at British high street lenders as well as banks in Poland, Hong Kong and other jurisdictions.
“Money laundering is a very sophisticated crime and we must be equally sophisticated.”
Janet Reno, while serving as Attorney General of the United States from 1993 to 2001
“The messages demonstrated that the defendant was constantly managing the accounts,” prosecuting barrister Frederick Hookway told the court. “But they required constant updating because when an account was used the bank or victim would catch on, so for the money laundering to continue, new accounts would have to be obtained.”
Kazeem had a structured business model and would typically provide his fraud team with details of a beneficiary’s account before directing “mule herders”—individuals who controlled the money mules—to withdraw the cash.
He used structuring to divide large amounts into smaller sums before transferring the into several accounts to escape transaction flagging which would typically trigger transaction reporting.
After each transaction, the mule herders and the mules would take a cut of the proceeds while Kazeem, the kingpin of the operation, gets £73,000 in “direct commission” deposited into his personal bank accounts.
The prison confirms that Kazeem would be given his digital devices and bank accounts after his release.
Jamie Horncastle, an investigator with the NCA’s National Cyber Crime Unit, told ACAMS moneylaundering.com after the hearing that the case shows the increasing reach of professional money launderers and role of modern digital technology in facilitating illicit finance.
ACAMS – moneylaundering has been very instrumental in providing updates on money laundering issues around the world.
