Adeniyi Adeyemi, computer technician and former contractor for Bank of New York (BNY Mellon), pleaded guilty to Grand Larceny in the First Degree, Money Laundering in the First Degree, and Computer Tampering in the First Degree, for scheming and stealing a list of personal information from 2,000 BNY employees and $1.1 million from charities and nonprofit organizations.
Within an eight-year period, Adeyemi stole and used 2,000 of his former co-workers’ personal information to create multiple dummy brokerage and bank accounts in efforts to wire and receive funds from charities’ bank accounts.
Most of the charities that were victimized had their banking information publicized over the Internet in order to facilitate donations. With his expertise background in computers, Adeyemi can easily transfer money from bank accounts using a back-end system called the Automated Clearing House network with the publicized information to move tens of thousands of dollars from the charities’ accounts to his dummy accounts.
To avoid suspicion, Adeyemi had allegedly structured all of his wire transfers to be just under $10,000.
If convicted, Adeyemi faces a maximum penalty of 65 years in prison.