UK student loan phisher cops 6.5 year sentence

Lucrative student loan scam said to have netted £1.5 million.

A man responsible for fraudulently acquiring £304,000 (AU$461,000) from British students through a phishing scam has been sentenced to 6.5 years in prison.

Damola Clement Olutunji was sentenced on Friday for his role in a £1.5 million scam targeting British customers of the Student Loans Company, according to the London Metropolitan Police Service (Met).

Olutunji and Å Amos Njoroge Mwangi, who was also recently sentenced, had participated in a phishing campaign targeting students with emails. The emails contained a link to a fake website and a notification to update their account details.

After students submitted their details to the scam’s account update procedure, the operators of the campaign withdrew sums between £1000 to £5000 at a time, according to the Met.

A search of Olutunji's devices revealed he had over 1,300 student loan account log in details, and was responsible £304,000 in actual fraud, £162,000 in attempted fraud, and £75,000 in fraud against customers of another bank, Halifax PLC.

Mwangi was sentenced to three years and three months imprisonment for his role in the scam. The Met said investigations revealed Mwangi had programs to create the phishing emails and set up the fake websites.

The two sentences stem from six arrests in London and Manchester last December in connection with the phishing operation.

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