OK, so what’s up with people from Nigeria? They are already legendary for their infamous “419 scams,” which get their name from the section of the Nigerian penal code that deal with such crimes. Back in February a member of a group of Nigerian immigrants in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area plead guilty to conspiracy to commit bank fraud.

Olayemi Lateef Banjoko was one of 10 suspects that were rounded up after their scheme netted them somewhere around $650,000 by creating phony credit cards using personal information belonging Capital One bank customers. The information was somehow obtained by cyber criminals who had stored the stolen information on a server in the Ukraine.

It is not uncommon for cyber crooks to steal personal information by hacking into various company systems and then selling the data to other criminals to use for identity theft crimes.

With the phony credit cards, they were able to visit ATM machines in the Twin Cities area and withdraw money from unsuspecting customer’s accounts.

Some of the suspects were more creative than others and laundered their ill-gotten profits buy purchasing expensive automobiles at auction and then shipping them to Nigeria where they were sold for a nice profit.

According to court documents, the criminal group committed more than 4,000 acts of fraud involving more than 1,300 customers of Capital One Bank. A bit of a black eye for Capital One, since one might suspect that they somehow leaked customer’s personal information to hackers.

It’s a shame to see immigrants come to this country to make a better life for themselves and end up turning to crime instead of earning an honest living.

It’s also sad that the good people that undoubtedly live in or come from Nigeria are smeared by the activities of the criminal element.

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Tags: Bank, Capital One, Credit Card Fraud, Cyber Crime, Olayemi Lateef Banjoko, Personal Information, Twin Cities