Lotenna Chisom Umeadi, 35, and a citizen of Nigeria, has pled guilty to two counts of wire fraud.
United States Attorney John A. Sarcone III and Erin Keegan, Special Agent in Charge of the Buffalo Field Office of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), made the announcement.
Umeadi admitted soliciting and purchasing a webpage from a computer hacker that allowed him to gain access to people’s email passwords illegally. Umeadi used those passwords to gain access to email accounts belonging to employees of a produce exporter in Sri Lanka.
Umeadi then sent fraudulent emails, which appeared to come from the produce exporter legitimately but were, in fact, from an email account set up and controlled by Umeadi, directing payment on the Sri Lankan company’s accounts receivable be made to bank accounts in the United Kingdom, controlled by Umeadi.
As a result of the fraudulent emails from Umeadi, on two occasions in 2016, a produce importer in Plattsburgh, New York, wired money totalling $158,400 to those bank accounts in the United Kingdom.
Umeadi was arrested on the charges on September 1, 2024, by authorities in Germany when he arrived there from Nigeria. Umeadi was then extradited from Germany to the United States.
At sentencing, scheduled for July 21, 2025, Umeadi faces a maximum term of 20 years in prison, a fine of up to $250,000, and a term of supervised release of up to three years.
