Authorities in the United States have arrested and charged a Nigerian national who was accused of defrauding Americans in a sprawling benefits scheme. 

An indictment unsealed Wednesday said Matthew Abiodun Akande, based in Mexico, was the ringleader of a syndicate that used the personal identifying information of Americans to request about $8.1 million in social benefits from the government. At least $1.3 million was received by Mr Akande, who appeared preliminarily in a Boston, Massachusetts, court on Wednesday. 

Mr Akande, 36, was arrested at London Heathrow on October 24, 2024, and his extradition was completed with his transfer to Boston on March 5, U.S. prosecutors said. 

He used “fraudulent phishing emails to be sent to five Massachusetts tax preparation firms,” prosecutors said. 

“The emails purported to be from a prospective client seeking the tax preparation firms’ services but in truth were used to trick the firms into downloading remote access trojan malicious software (RAT malware), including malware known as Warzone RAT,” they added. 

Officials said Mr Akande “allegedly used the RAT malware to obtain the PII and prior year tax information of the tax preparation firms’ clients.”

Stolen funds were transferred to Mexico, with authorities identifying at least “1,000 fraudulent tax returns seeking over $8.1 million in fraudulent tax refunds over approximately five years,” adding that the fraudsters “successfully obtained over $1.3 million in fraudulent tax refunds.”

His co-conspirator, Kehinde Oyetunji, another Nigerian national, had previously been charged and sentenced to prison over his role in the vast scheme, which authorities said was carried out between June 2016 and June 2021. 

Mr Akande faces several counts of stealing government funds and identity theft. He was summarily remanded in prison pending the appointment of an attorney and trial. 

The case comes amid a flurry of high-profile prosecutions of internet fraudsters of Nigerian origin in the U.S. A senior Nigerian politician and a monarch were charged in separate fraud cases in recent weeks.