A man has been charged with wire fraud and computer fraud for allegedly stealing over $235,000 from a university in Western Pennsylvania, according to Acting United States Attorney Troy Rivetti.
Farouk Adekunle Adepoju, a Nigerian citizen residing in the United Kingdom, was arrested by U.K. authorities on Monday, following a U.S. request for extradition. He is currently awaiting extradition to the United States to face a seven-count indictment in the Western District of Pennsylvania.
“Adepoju is charged with using sophisticated cyber means to illegally access accounts belonging to a business in order to victimize one of our region’s universities,” said Acting United States Attorney Rivetti.
FBI Pittsburgh Special Agent in Charge Kevin Rojek stated, “Criminals who think they can reach across the globe into the United States to line their pockets at the expense of the American public need know one thing: the FBI and our partners are not going to let you get away with it.”
According to the indictment, Adepoju allegedly accessed a protected computer belonging to a construction company working for the university. He used this unauthorized access to create rule changes within an employee’s email account and registered a spoofed domain to assume the identity of another employee.
From the spoofed email account, Adepoju sent fraudulent emails to university employees, requesting updates to the construction company’s payment information to a fraudulent bank account. The university, relying on these emails, sent a payment of approximately $235,266.80 to the fraudulent account, which has not been recovered.
Adepoju faces six counts of wire fraud and one count of computer fraud. Each wire fraud offense carries a maximum sentence of up to 20 years in prison, while the computer fraud offense carries up to five years.
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