The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has charged a United States citizen with money laundering after he acted as a middleman to funnel millions of dollars in kickbacks from Nigerian romance scams and business email compromises, the U.S. Department of Justice has said.
Niselio Barros Garcia, a Florida man, admitted guilt to supplying Nigerian Internet fraudsters with his bank account information so they could use it to get paid for romance scams from the bulk of their victims being U.S. citizens.
Mr Garcia, 50, converted the criminal funds to bitcoins before transferring them to the Nigerian scammers after taking hundreds of thousands of dollars as commission for his role.
“After receiving the criminal proceeds, Garcia used a cryptocurrency exchange to conceal and transfer the funds in Bitcoin to co-conspirators in Nigeria,” the DOJ stated on January 30. “Garcia personally laundered over $2.3 million of criminal proceeds and earned hundreds of thousands of dollars in fees.”
Mr Garcia, facing up to 20 years in jail, will be sentenced on April 23 by a federal district judge in the Southern District of Florida.
Brian Boynton, the Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General, said Mr Garcia’s case showed that fraudsters were getting more sophisticated in the methods employed to defraud unsuspecting victims and advised the American people to be more vigilant.
He, however, reaffirmed the department’s “commitment to protecting the public from complex financial crimes.”
“This case serves as a reminder of the sophisticated methods employed by criminals and the need for vigilance in the digital age,” Mr Boynton said. “The Justice Department remains committed to aggressively pursuing individuals and groups involved in these kinds of illicit activities.”
