More than three years after using email scam to steal about $850,000 in bond construction money that was supposed to go to contractor Adolfson and Peterson Construction, the police have arrested Sherifdeen Mogaji, 39.
Investigators in 2017 believed he had fled to Nigeria, but he was arrested on February 21, 2020 and booked into the Boulder County Jail in Texas, on suspicion of theft of $100,000 to $999,000, computer crime and forgery.
The arrest affidavit states that Mogaji used a New York driver’s license number to open a TD Bank account where the funds were deposited. He allegedly spent around $371,000 in a few months and wired money to himself in Nigeria. .
He also spent $31,000 on student loan payments, according to the documents. The district first realized the scam when the contractor, Adolfson and Peterson Construction, asked for payments that already had been made.
The district said a sophisticated email that included a forged signature was sent to its office asking for a form to change routing information. The district then filled out the form and made four payments to a fraudulent account, which totaled $852,733.83.
Authorities were able to recover about $500,000 by freezing the fraudulent account. The district said insurance covered another $200,000, leaving the district with $172,000 stolen
