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A federal grand jury has returned an indictment charging four with conspiracy to commit bank fraud, bank fraud, and aggravated identity theft US Attorney Erek Barron announced.
Those charged:
- Raissa Kaossele, 22, of Baltimore;
- Damilola Ojo, 29, of Pikesville;
- Victor Ojo, 28, of Edgewood;
- Jamelia Thompson, 29, of Pikesville.
It is alleged that between April 2016 and May 2019, the four executed a “business email compromise scheme” that involved them compromising the email accounts of their victims by sending fraudulent payment instructions to financial institutions or business associates to misappropriate funds.
The indictment alleges that the four also used the stolen identifying information of individual victims to obtain Employer Identification Numbers and state business certificates in the name of shell businesses.
They also allegedly obtained legitimate checks written on the accounts of payor business victims and made payable to payee business victims. In certain cases, the four also allegedly altered the name of the payee on some checks and deposited the stolen checks into bank accounts they opened and controlled.
In total, the scheme net the four more than $4 million in fraudulent bank transactions, prosecutors said.
If convicted, the four suspects face a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison for conspiracy to commit bank fraud, a maximum of 30 years in prison for bank fraud, and a mandatory minimum sentence of two years in federal prison consecutive to any other sentence imposed for aggravated identity theft.
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