US authorities have sentenced 36-year-old dual Canadian-US national Ghaleb Alaumary to 140 months in prison for laundering tens of millions of dollars obtained through various wire and bank fraud schemes. Alaumary also has to pay over $30 million in restitution to victims. Additionally, he will serve three years of supervised release after being released from jail.
Alaumary pleaded guilty to two cases of money laundering. In the first case, Alaumary and co-conspirators sent fraudulent emails made to appear to be from a construction company to a Canadian university in 2017. The fraudulent emails requested payment for a major building project and the university mistakenly paid over $9.4 million to the criminals. Alaumary had the money laundered through multiple financial institutions in the US and elsewhere.
In the second case, Alaumary led several individuals to withdraw stolen money from ATMs into accounts that he controlled. The funds came from fraud schemes and bank cyber-heists, including one of a Malta-based bank conducted in 2019 by North Korean cyber criminals. Alaumary then laundered the illicit funds through cash withdrawals, wire transfers and cryptocurrency conversions.
Source: US Department of Justice