Two former airmen drew 111 and 78 months for diverting a $1.68 million wire

Chijioke Timothy Odimegwu, 25, was sentenced to 111 months in federal prison, and Harafat Mogaji, 26, to 78 months, for a business email compromise scheme that redirected a wire of more than $1.68 million away from a victim in Iowa City. Both men were Air Force members stationed at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware while the fraud ran, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Iowa.

Together the terms come to 189 months, followed by three years of supervised release for each man.

The sentences and what the court ordered

The U.S. Attorney’s Office release lists Odimegwu at 111 months and Mogaji at 78, imposed on September 25, 2026. Odimegwu was ordered to pay $366,617.59 in restitution and Mogaji $995,680.45. Regional coverage converts the terms into years: KCRG reported nine years and three months for Odimegwu and six years and six months for Mogaji. The release names Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Lubben as the prosecutor and U.S. Attorney David C. Waterman as the head of the office.

Both men are described in the release as Delaware residents who served in the Air Force when the crimes occurred, and the two are now former members. Dover Air Force Base, where WBOC and BleepingComputer place them, is in Delaware. The prosecution was brought in the Southern District of Iowa, where the largest reported loss occurred.

The FBI investigated with the Air Force Office of Special Investigations. In remarks Help Net Security carried, the FBI said criminals from all backgrounds attack digital systems and that “no one and no device is immune from the threat.” None of the published accounts names the sentencing judge, and no docket entry could be retrieved, so the sentences rest on the Justice Department’s own announcement.

Spoofed partners and a Chicago account

The mechanics will be familiar to anyone who handles accounts payable. According to the release, the defendants operated for nearly two years. They sent phishing and spam email to steal employee login credentials, which gave them a view into real correspondence between companies and their suppliers or partners. They then used spoofed addresses that imitated legitimate business partners to redirect payments to accounts controlled by co-conspirators in the United States and abroad. BleepingComputer’s report quotes the release on the largest diversion: a wire of more than $1.68 million sent by a victim in Iowa City, Iowa, to a bank account in Chicago controlled by the conspiracy.

The Iowa City wire was not the only target. An Ohio business, placed in Athens by KCRG, had $720,000 diverted, and the defendants also harvested payment-card information from a nonprofit in Pella, Iowa. The release adds that they stole financial data, including account numbers, PINs and credit and debit card details, from victims across the country, and traded it with co-conspirators in the United States and abroad. WBOC in Delaware places the conspiracy between 2023 and 2025 and says both men were convicted for their roles.

Gaps between prison terms and restitution

The restitution figures sit well below the sums moved, and the sentences by themselves do not reveal how much money the victims will get back, because a restitution order sets what a defendant owes rather than what has been recovered. Odimegwu’s $366,617.59 and Mogaji’s $995,680.45 add up to about $1.36 million, against $1.68 million for the Iowa City wire and $720,000 for the Ohio diversion alone, before counting card thefts and attempted transfers. The release does not explain how the court arrived at each figure, and it does not say how much of the diverted money was recovered before sentencing.

Business email compromise is a staple of FBI complaint data, and the Delaware case follows its usual outline: a stolen mailbox, a lookalike sender, and a payment instruction changed at the last moment. BleepingComputer, citing FBI figures, puts losses above $3 billion across 24,768 complaints in 2025. The Delaware case is notable because the defendants held military positions at the time, though none of the sources says that the scheme touched Air Force networks or systems. The Air Force Office of Special Investigations took part in the inquiry alongside the FBI, which is the extent of the military role described in the release.

The release and the local coverage leave out the counts of conviction and each man’s plea history. WBOC says only that both were convicted for their roles in the scheme, and the charging documents are not reproduced in any account, so the length of each sentence cannot be tied to specific counts. The FBI and the Air Force Office of Special Investigations carry the investigative credit, and Assistant U.S. Attorney Lubben handled the prosecution.

This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.

More from Morning Overview