by Andrew Murray | August 12th, 2019
On July 30, 2019, the Department of Justice announced the indictment. The defendant, now accused of wire fraud, was convicted earlier this year on money laundering charges. The Press Release states:
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Yannick A. Minang, 26, was arrested on July 1, 2019, and charged by criminal complaint with one count of international money laundering conspiracy. Today, Minang was indicted on five counts of wire fraud, one count of unlawful monetary transactions and one count of money laundering conspiracy.
Earlier this year, Minang pleaded guilty to a five-count indictment for his role in a similar business email compromise (BEC) scheme in 2017. Minang is scheduled to be sentenced on those charges on Sept. 24, 2019, before U.S. District Court Judge F. Dennis Saylor.
As alleged in today’s indictment, Minang conspired with others to open numerous bank accounts in Massachusetts in the name of sham companies, as part of an apparent BEC scheme, which is a sophisticated scam often targeting businesses involved in wire transfer payments. The fraud is carried out by compromising and/or “spoofing” legitimate business email accounts through social engineering or computer intrusion techniques to cause employees of the victim company (or other individuals involved in legitimate business transactions) to transfer funds to accounts controlled by the scammers.
Through the use of fraudulent invoices and spoofed email accounts, Minang allegedly conspired to trick the victims of the scheme into wiring hundreds of thousands of dollars to bank accounts under his control. Minang and his co-conspirators then transferred funds from the accounts to others located overseas.
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