NEWARK, N.J. – A man responsible for digging up Social Security numbers and other personal data that was used to siphon millions of phony home equity lines of credit from credit unions and banks was convicted here last week on bank fraud charges.
Yomi Jagunna, a 44-year-old Nigerian immigrant, is one of a handful of small players to plead guilty in this international scheme, which stole as much as $5 million from U.S. credit unions and banks and wired the proceeds overseas, beyond the reach of U.S. law enforcement.
Jagunna, who held back tears during last week’s plea hearing, told authorities he set up a sham collection agency to gain access to a commercial database. He admitted selling 39 Social Security numbers for $30 a piece, but authorities said he had access to a database of more than 100,000 Social Security numbers.
Jagunna is one of 17 individuals charged in the nationwide HELOC scheme that fooled credit union and bank employees into transferring funds to accounts in at least seven countries, authorities said. Part of the scheme was using sophisticated dodges to circumvent the institutions’ attempts to verify the wire transfers with telephone calls.
In some cases, they convinced phone company employees to reroute their victims' calls. When the credit union or bank called the victim's home number, one of the suspects' cell phones rang, authorities said.
At least five of the conspirators have pled guilty to bank fraud charges so far, but authorities are still trying to track the funds and the recipients of the funds overseas. One investigator expressed frustration of dealing with the different countries and a variety of law enforcement agencies.
Among the credit unions targeted were U.S. Senate FCU, Navy FCU, Pentagon FCU, State Department FCU, Affinity FCU, Financial Resources FCU, First Financial FCU, as well as JP Morgan Chase, Wachovia, Washington Mutual, Bank of America and dozens of smaller banks and credit unions.
Also hit were: BMS FCU, FDU FCU, L’Oreal USA FCU, New Jersey Gateway FCU, North Jersey FCU, Novartis FCU, Picatinny FCU and Self Reliance FCU.
While credit unions typically verify the authenticity of a wire request by contacting the member at a telephone number on file, the suspects used one of two techniques to reroute the verification call. Either they would persuade credit union officials to change the account holder’s number on file to one they set up; or they would contact the local phone company to report a fake technical problem and have the calls forwarded to one of their own phones.
