Nigerian Man Gets 8 Years for US Tax Firm Hacks

A Nigerian man who helped hack into US tax preparation businesses and use their customers’ data to file fake tax returns has been sentenced to eight years in prison in New York.

Chukwuemeka Victor Amachukwu, 40, was sentenced by US District Judge Paul G. Gardephe, the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York said in a press release on Monday, 19 October 2026. He had pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit computer intrusions and conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

Prosecutors said the group used spearphishing emails, which are scam emails written to target specific people or businesses, to break into the firms’ computer systems.

In brief

Amachukwu was sentenced to eight years in prison, plus one year of supervised release.
Prosecutors say the group sought fraudulent tax refunds of “at least approximately $8.4 million” and obtained “at least approximately $2.5 million”.
He was ordered to pay $3,647,629.39 in restitution and to forfeit $10,846,634.39.

What did prosecutors say he did?

According to the release, beginning “in at least in or about 2019”, Amachukwu, his co-conspirator Kingsley Uchelue Utulu and other Nigeria-based conspirators “took part in a scheme to hack into U.S-based tax preparation businesses”.

The firms were in New York, Texas and other states. Once inside, the conspirators “stole the tax and other identifying information for at least approximately 800 of the business’ customers”, prosecutors said.

The release says the conspirators obtained the stolen identity information of “thousands of individuals”. They used it to file fraudulent tax returns with the Internal Revenue Service and state tax authorities.

The Record described one incident in May 2021. It said the men sent a phishing email to an employee of a Manhattan tax preparation business, infecting the company with malware, and then allegedly stole the tax information of the firm’s customers.

How much money was involved?

The release gives these figures, all described as minimums:

Scheme	Amount
Tax refunds sought	At least approx. $8.4m
Tax refunds obtained	At least approx. $2.5m
SBA disaster loan payouts	At least approx. $819,000
Letters of credit scam	More than $7m

Source: US Attorney’s Office, SDNY, 19 October 2026.

The conspirators also used the stolen identities to file claims with the Small Business Administration’s Economic Injury Disaster Loan programme. Prosecutors said they obtained “at least an additional approximately $819,000 in fraudulent payouts”.

What was the second scheme?

Separately, Amachukwu took part in a scheme offering US victims investments in “purportedly valuable standby letters of credit”, the release says. A standby letter of credit is a bank guarantee, but these investments “did not exist”.

Prosecutors said Amachukwu “impersonated a wealthy overseas financier in order to fool his victims”, and that he and his co-conspirators “were able to pocket more than $7 million in fraudulent proceeds”.

What was the sentence?

Besides the eight-year prison term, Amachukwu was sentenced to one year of supervised release. He was ordered to pay restitution of $3,647,629.39, which is money paid back to victims, and forfeiture of $10,846,634.39, which is money or property the government can seize as proceeds of the crimes.

The release lists two aliases for him: “Chukwuemeka Victor Eletuo” and “So Kwan Leung”.

“Chukwuemeka Amachukwu believed he was operating safely offshore when he targeted his victims, but he has now been held to account and now faces a serious sentence for his crimes,” said US Attorney Jamie McDonald.

He added: “These crimes imposed significant harm on the victims and the public, and so it is only appropriate that the crimes also come with a significant sentence for the defendant.”

The FBI investigated the case, and the office’s Complex Frauds and Cybercrime Unit handled the prosecution.

How did he end up in a US court?

Amachukwu was extradited from France last year, according to The Record. The release itself does not mention the extradition.

The Record also reported that Utulu, his co-conspirator, was sentenced in June to five years in prison for his role in the scheme, after being arrested in the UK.

Our read

This is TSN’s analysis. The case shows how a basic technique, a targeted phishing email, can open up an entire customer database when it lands at a small business that holds sensitive records. Tax preparers hold exactly the data needed to file a fake return. Operating from abroad also failed to keep either defendant out of reach: according to The Record, one was extradited from France and the other arrested in the UK.