29 October 2009 News

 

Over 150 BNY Mellon employees identities allegedly stolen

Manhattan district attorney Robert Morgenthau has announced a 149-count indictment of a computer technician for stealing the identities of more than 150 employees of the Bank of New York Mellon and using these identities to orchestrate more than $1.1 million in thefts against charities and non-profits, among other institutions.

The defendant Adeniyi Adeyemi has been indicted on charges of grand larceny, identity theft, money laundering, scheme to defraud, computer tampering, and unlawful possession of personal identification information. The crimes charged in the indictment occurred between November 1, 2001 and April 30, 2009.

The investigation leading to the indictment revealed that Adeyemi was employed as a computer technician at the headquarters of the Bank of New York at 1 Wall Street and other Bank of New York locations in Manhattan. In the course of his tenure at Bank of New York, Adeyemi allegedly stole the personal identifying information of dozens of Bank of New York employees, mainly in the Information Technology Department, where he was assigned. In the years that followed, it is claimed Adeyemi used the employees' personal identifiers to open over 30 bank and brokerage accounts in their identities with several financial institutions, including E*Trade, Fidelity, Citi, Wachovia, and Washington Mutual. These accounts served as dummy accounts for the purpose of receiving stolen funds. According to the investigation Adeyemi then stole money from the bank accounts of charities and non-profit organisations and funnelled it into the dummy accounts, later withdrawing the stolen funds or transferring them to a second layer of dummy accounts. In the interests of facilitating donations, many charities readily disseminate their banking details on the Internet, making them easy prey for unauthorised withdrawals by identity thieves, particularly those with computer expertise such as Adeyemi. Most of Adeyemi's alleged theft was perpetrated over the Internet.

For example, the DA alleges that in July 2006, Adeyemi opened a dummy account with E*Trade, an online brokerage, in the name of a Bank of New York employee from the Information Technology Department. Over the course of the ensuing two months, Adeyemi transferred money online from the bank account of Goodwill Industries of Greater New York and Northern New Jersey into the dummy account. By the time the fraud was uncovered, Adeyemi had stolen $120,000 from Goodwill Industries. Adeyemi spent nearly $70,000 of that total on money orders from the United States Postal Service, and withdrew the remainder in cash or transferred it to other dummy accounts. Other victimised organisations include Iris Ministries, the Kalgidhar Trust, the Sudanese American Community Development Organisation, Ravi Zacharias International Ministries, AFK Foundation, the American Community School at Beirut, the Jacksonville Humane Society, American Friends of Birdlife International, the International Association of Women Judges, the Space Generation Advisory Council, and the American Association for Clinical Chemistry.

Adeyemi is also alleged to have stolen from the Bank of New York employees themselves by changing the contact information associated with the employees' online banking profiles, taking control of their online banking capabilities, and wiring money from the employees' personal bank accounts to dummy accounts he had established. To avoid scrutiny all such wire transfers to be just under $10,000, the threshold at which all financial institutions must report transactions to the United States Treasury.

He came under surveillance by the New York/New Jersey Electronic Crimes Task Force of the United States Secret Service when suspicious internet activity traced back to wireless Internet connections in Adeyemi's apartment building, and mail connected to the fraud was delivered to the various apartments within the building. In executing a court-authorised search warrant of Adeyemi's apartment on April 30, 2009, investigators say they found dozens of Bank of New York employees' credit reports on his computer, along with many other documents containing personal identifying information of more than 150 Bank of New York employees. In a storage locker Adeyemi rented, the investigative team say they found notebooks containing hundreds of names, social security numbers, account numbers, and other personal data, along with numerous credit cards in Bank of New York employees' names. Investigators also say they recovered $30,000 in cash from Adeyemi's apartment. He was arrested in the course of the search warrant execution, and has remained in custody since.

Adeyemi has been indicted on one count of Grand Larceny in the First Degree, 138 counts of counts of Identity Theft in the First Degree, one count of Money Laundering in the First Degree, one count of Computer Tampering in the First Degree, two counts of Money Laundering in the Second Degree, three counts of Grand Larceny in the Second Degree, two counts of Scheme to Defraud in the First Degree, and one count of Unlawful Possession of Personal Identification Information in the Second Degree.

Grand Larceny in the First Degree and Money Laundering in the First Degree are class B felonies which are punishable by up to 25 years in prison. Computer Tampering in the First Degree, Money Laundering in the Second Degree, and Grand Larceny in the Second Degree are class C felonies which are punishable by up to 15 years in prison. Identity Theft in the First Degree is a class D felony which is punishable by up to 7 years in prison. Scheme to Defraud in the First Degree and Unlawful Possession of Personal Identification Information in the Second Degree are class E felonies which are punishable by up to 4 years in prison.

The investigation is continuing. Adeyemi will be arraigned in State Supreme Court before Justice Carol Berkman.