A total of over $8.1 million in fraudulent tax refunds was sought by a Nigerian man, Matthew Abiodun Akande, who has been sentenced to eight years in prison. The conviction follows Akande's hacking of several tax preparation firms in Massachusetts, where he illegally accessed client personal information using malware.
Arrested in October 2024 at Heathrow Airport, Akande was extradited to the United States in March 2025 after being indicted by a federal grand jury in July 2022. He operated from Mexico during part of the criminal activities, which spanned from June 2016 to June 2021, during which he filed more than 1,000 fraudulent tax returns and fraudulently collected over $1.3 million in refunds.
To execute his scheme, Akande utilized the Warzone remote-access trojan malware, which he acquired alongside encryption software to evade detection. He deceived tax firms by sending phishing emails that appeared to be from a CEO of a legitimate company, attaching false tax documents to make the communications seem credible. The malware was then installed when recipients clicked on a disguised Dropbox link.