Kenyan pleads guilty to more than $ 800,000 Internet scam

A Kenyan must be sentenced in October this year after pleading guilty to fraudulently receiving $ 749,158.37 from the University of California at San Diego (UCSD).

Mr. Amis Hbadan Raage received this money as part of a computer ploy he pleaded guilty to during his trial.

He will be sentenced before US District Judge Gonzalo P. Curiel on October 11, 2019.

Hbadan Raage will be sentenced for conspiracy to commit strike fraud, in violation of Title 18 of the US Code, Articles 1349.

The offense is punishable by a maximum penalty of twenty years imprisonment.

Daily Nation reported that on July 23, 2018, UCSD received an email from Dell's fraudulent email account, requesting the institution to redirect its payments on Dell hardware and services to Dell's bank account. Raage's Wells Fargo, Minnesota, United States.

The university believed that the email came from a legitimate Dell employee and therefore followed the instructions and redirected the payment.

Co-conspirator of Kenya

But the email actually comes from one of Raage's co-conspirators in Kenya, the Daily Nation reported.

The report states that from August 8 to September 12, 2018, UCSD made 28 payments to Raage for a total amount of $ 749,158.37.

But the university, after learning that the payments were made to the wrong person, then stopped the payment.

Raage and her co-conspirators stole $ 123,643.77 from another Pennsylvania university.

They used the same tactics by asking to redirect Dell payments from the university to a bank account in Minnesota again controlled by Raage.

The university was warned that payments were made to a fraudulent person and then the payments were stopped.

Raage's accounts were blocked by his bank forcing him to flee to Kenya on September 22, 2018.

He was, however, arrested on May 7, 2019 and extradited to the United States for prosecution.