Nigerian jailed eight years in US for $1.3m tax refund fraud

A United States federal court has sentenced Matthew Akande, a 37-year-old Nigerian national, to eight years in prison for stealing taxpayers’ personal information and using it to claim fraudulent tax refunds worth more than $1.3 million.

US District Court Judge Indira Talwani in Boston handed down the sentence, ordering Akande to serve eight years in prison followed by three years of supervised release.

The court also directed him to pay $1,393,230 in restitution, according to a statement released by the US government.

Akande, who was based in Mexico, was arrested at Heathrow Airport in the United Kingdom in October 2024 following a request from US authorities.

He was extradited to the United States on March 5, 2025, where he was indicted on multiple charges, including conspiracy to obtain unauthorised access to protected computers in furtherance of fraud, theft of government money, money laundering, wire fraud, and aggravated identity theft.

According to the US government, Akande and his accomplices operated a sophisticated cyber fraud scheme between June 2016 and June 2021, using stolen taxpayers’ personally identifiable information (PII) to file fake tax returns and divert refunds to accounts controlled by co-conspirators.

The authorities said the scheme “involved stealing taxpayers’ PII from Massachusetts tax preparation firms via phishing attacks and computer intrusions”.

Akande allegedly sent fraudulent phishing emails to five Massachusetts tax preparation firms, posing as potential clients to lure the firms into installing malicious software.

“The emails purported to be from a prospective client seeking the tax preparation firms’ services but in truth were used to trick the firms into downloading remote access trojan malicious software (RAT malware), including malware known as Warzone RAT,” the US government said.

Investigators said he used the malware to harvest sensitive tax data, which was then used to submit fraudulent returns.

“Akande used the RAT malware to obtain the PII and prior year tax information of the tax preparation firms’ clients, which Akande then used to cause fraudulent tax returns to be filed seeking refunds,” the statement added.

The fake returns directed refunds into bank accounts opened by co-conspirators in the United States, who withdrew the funds and transferred portions to third parties in Mexico at Akande’s direction.

“The tax returns directed that the fraudulent tax refunds be deposited in bank accounts opened by co-conspirators in the United States. Once the refunds were issued, those co-conspirators withdrew the stolen money in cash in the United States and then transferred a portion to third parties in Mexico, at

Akande’s direction, while keeping a portion for themselves.

“In total, Akande and his co-conspirators filed more than 1,000 fraudulent tax returns seeking over $8.1 million in fraudulent tax refunds over approximately five years. They successfully obtained over $1.3 million in fraudulent tax refunds.”

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