A US court has sentenced 40-year-old Nigerian, Chukwuemeka Victor Amachukwu, to eight years in prison for $10.8 million hacking and fraud.
US District Judge Paul G. Gardephe handed down the sentence in New York on Monday after Amachukwu pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit computer intrusion and wire fraud.
He was also ordered to forfeit $10.8 million and pay $3.64 million in restitution.
According to the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, Amachukwu and his accomplice, Kingsley Uchelue Utulu, used spear-phishing emails from 2019 to hack tax preparation firms in New York, Texas and other states.
They stole data of about 800 customers and used it to file fake tax returns to the IRS, seeking $8.4 million and getting $2.5 million.
They also used the stolen identities to obtain at least $819,000 from the Small Business Administration’s disaster loan programme.
In another scheme, Amachukwu posed as a foreign financier to sell fake investments in standby letters of credit, defrauding victims of over $7 million.
Amachukwu, who also used the aliases Chukwuemeka Victor Eletuo and So Kwan Leung, was arrested and extradited from France to the United States in August 2025. Prosecutors said he believed he could operate safely from offshore, but the US authorities tracked his activities across borders and brought him to justice.
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