Two Nigerian Nationals Charged in Connection with Business Email Compromise Scheme

MINNEAPOLIS - Two Nigerian nationals have been indicted for engaging in a fraudulent business email compromise scheme targeting several Minnesota-based health care companies, announced U.S. Attorney Andrew M. Luger.

According to court documents, from October 2020 through 2024, Shodiya Babatunde, 43, and Jamui Ahmed, 31, devised and carried out a fraudulent business email compromise scheme that targeted and deceived employees of several Minnesota-based health care companies into making payments to bank accounts controlled by Babatunde, Ahmed, and their co-conspirators, rather than to the intended beneficiaries of the payments.

As part of the scheme, Babatunde and Ahmed created a fake "spoofed" internet domain designed to appear as though it was controlled by Fairview Health. Babatunde and Ahmed also created fake email accounts designed to look as though they belonged to Fairview Health executives, including the CEO, the Executive Vice President and General Counsel, and a business analyst. Babatunde and Ahmed used the fake emails to carry out a "phishing" scheme to fraudulently obtain names, passwords, and access to payment accounts. The defendants also used their spoofed accounts to email several other Minnesota-based health insurance companies and provide new accounts into which such payments intended for Fairview Health should be wired. Unbeknownst to the vendor companies, the new accounts were actually controlled by Babatunde and Ahmed and their co-conspirators, not Fairview Health. In total, Babatunde and Ahmed fraudulently directed more than $13 million in payments intended for Fairview Health from Minnesota-based health care companies to accounts controlled by Babatunde, Ahmed, and their co-conspirators.

Babatunde and Ahmed are citizens and residents of Nigeria. They remain fugitives from justice.

This case is the result of an investigation conducted by the FBI.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph H. Thompson is prosecuting the case.

An indictment is merely an allegation and the defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.