A United States court has sentenced 37-year-old Nigerian Matthew Akande to eight years in prison for orchestrating a $1.3 million tax refund fraud scheme using stolen taxpayers’ information.
A 37-year-old Nigerian, Matthew Akande, has been sentenced to eight years in prison by a United States court for stealing taxpayers’ information to obtain fraudulent tax refunds worth $1.3 million. Indira Talwani, a US District Court judge in Boston, handed down the sentence, which also includes three years of supervised release following his prison term.
According to a statement published by the US government, the court ordered Akande to pay $1,393,230 in restitution. In October 2024, Akande, described as a Mexico-based Nigerian, was arrested at Heathrow Airport in the United Kingdom at the request of the US government and was extradited to the United States on March 5, 2025.
He had been indicted for conspiracy to obtain unauthorised access to protected computers in furtherance of fraud and to commit theft of government money and money laundering; wire fraud; unauthorised access to protected computers in furtherance of fraud; theft of government money; and aggravated identity theft. Prosecutors said that between June 2016 and June 2021, Akande worked with others to steal money from the US government by using taxpayers’ personally identifiable information (PII) to file fraudulent tax returns in their names.
READ THE FULL STORY IN THE CABLE