British Citizen Pleads Guilty to Email Hacking and Embezzlement
Idris Dao Mustafa, a British citizen, has pleaded guilty to charges of e-mail hacking, brokerage account fraud, and embezzlement of more than $6 million. The decision was announced on Tuesday at the Eastern District Court of New York.
According to the case materials, Mustafa and his unidentified accomplices gained illegal access to bank accounts using phishing attacks and hacking servers of American financial institutions between 2011 and 2018. They obtained confidential data of the account owners and placed malicious files in the systems.
In the beginning, the attackers initiated money transfers on behalf of the account owners and also stole securities through victims’ brokerage accounts. However, when financial companies detected suspicious transactions and blocked them, Mustafa and his team had to change their tactics.
On May 17, 2016, Mustafa initiated the purchase of shares of a public company at an increasing price on behalf of one of the victims. Subsequently, he sold shares of the same company from his brokerage account, making a profit of $68,000. The victim themselves suffered losses of approximately $289,000.
Additionally, the criminals established online romantic relationships on behalf of fictional personalities named “Melanie Sonders” and “Ben,” targeting individuals who were searching for a soul mate on the internet. Having gained the trust of their victims, the criminals convinced them to open bank and brokerage accounts for joint use. They then manipulated the victims into depositing checks and transferring money on their behalf.
Mustafa, who operated under the pseudonym Drizzle Lomo, was a member of the Built to Win Baller’s Club Afrogit-Group. He received education in the field of information technology at the University of Bradford in the UK.