A United States of America Court has slammed an eight-year jail term on a Nigerian man, Matthew Akande.

Akande, 37, who was living in Mexico was extradited to the US over his role in a scheme to break into Massachusetts tax preparation firms’ computer networks and to file fraudulent tax returns.

Delivering the court’s judgement on Tuesday, Judge Indira Talwani directed that Akande’s sentence be followed by a three years of supervised release.

The convict was also ordered to make a payment of $1,393,230 in restitution for the wire fraud.

Arrested at the Heathrow Airport in the United Kingdom in October 2024, Akande was moved to the US on March 5, 2025, after all documentation was completed.

His arrest followed an indictment by a federal grand jury on a one-count charge of conspiracy to obtain unauthorised access to protected computers in July 2022.

According to the charge, the convicted fellow was said to have committed theft of government money and money laundering – culminating in a one-count wire fraud; 13 counts of theft; and 14 counts of aggravated identity theft.

The charge also noted that Akande, between June 2016 and June 2021, worked with other individuals to steal money belonging to the US government.

He was said to have used taxpayers’ personally identifiable information (PII) to file fraudulent tax returns in the taxpayers’ names.

The US Attorney’s Office, District of Massachusetts had alleged that these fraudulent moves by Akande were carried out through phishing attacks and computer intrusions.

He also initiated phishing emails, purported to have originated from prospective clients, to five different Massachusetts tax preparation firms.

More details from his charge sheet indicated that Akande, while claiming to seek the firms’ services in the emails, used the trick to download a remote access trojan malicious software (RAT malware), including malware known as Warzone RAT.

The malware was used by Akande to fraudulently cause tax returns to be filed seeking refunds.

It also noted that the tax returns which were deposited into several bank accounts opened by his conspirators in the US and further withdrawn in cash.

Further details showed that the cash withdrawn by his co-conspirators was later transferred to third parties in Mexico, at the instance of Akande.

While a portion of the money was handed to Akande, the remaining funds were shared among his conspirators.

According to the Attorney’s office, the criminals filed more than 1,000 fraudulent tax returns seeking over $8.1 million in fraudulent tax refunds over approximately five years.

In total, they were able to obtain over $1.3 million in fraudulent tax refunds.