A 40-year-old Nigerian national was sentenced to eight years in prison for running a years-long hacking, tax fraud and investment scheme, the Justice Department said Monday.
Chukwuemeka Victor Amachukwu enriched himself from 2019 to 2023 by hacking into U.S.-based tax preparation businesses, filing false tax returns with federal and state authorities using identities stolen from victim organizations and enticing victims to send him money for investments that did not exist, according to court records.
Amachukwu pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit computer intrusions and wire fraud in April. He was arrested in France in July 2023 and extradited to the United States in August 2025.
“Chukwuemeka Amachukwu believed he was operating safely offshore when he targeted his victims, but he has now been held to account and now faces a serious sentence for his crimes,” Jamie McDonald, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, said in a statement.
“Amachukwu took part in sophisticated schemes to hack into U.S. businesses, steal and use stolen identity information of victims, and commit fraud,” McDonald added. “These crimes imposed significant harm on the victims and the public, and so it is only appropriate that the crimes also come with a significant sentence for the defendant.”
The financial penalties imposed on Amachukwu for his crimes accentuate the damage he inflicted at scale. A federal judge ordered him to pay nearly $3.65 million in restitution to his many victims and forfeit almost $10.85 million.
Prosecutors said Amachukwu and his alleged co-conspirators obtained more than $7 million in fraudulent investment schemes, about $2.5 million in fraudulent tax returns and $819,000 in fraudulent payouts from the Small Business Administration’s Economic Injury Disaster Loan program.
Amachukwu, his alleged co-conspirator Kingsley Uchelue Utulu and other alleged Nigeria-based co-conspirators also stole the tax and personal data of at least 800 business customers after hacking into tax businesses based in New York, Texas and elsewhere, according to court records.
In one of those attacks, in May 2021, members of the conspiracy sent a spearfishing email to an employee of a New York-based tax preparation business, which infected the firm’s computer systems with malware.
The FBI, Justice Department’s Office of International Affairs and the U.S. Marshals Service assisted the investigation, which led to Amachukwu’s arrest and extradition from France.
