Kenyan Man Pleads Guilty to Defrauding Two US Universities of over $800,000

A Kenyan-born man has pleaded guilty to swindling two United States universities out of more than $800,000 in a computer phishing scheme.

Amis Hassan Raage pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud on Thursday before a southern California court.

The charge carries a prison sentence of up to 20 years. Raage will be sentenced by Judge Gonzalo Curiel in the San Diego court on October 11th, 2019.

The 48-year-old pleaded guilty to receiving over $870,000 in payments from officials from the University of California, San Diego and a second unspecified college in the state of Pennsylvania.
“Modern criminals like Raage have ditched the ski mask and getaway vehicle and opted for a computer as their weapon of choice,” US Attorney Robert Brewer said in announcing the guilty plea.

“As this defendant has learned, we are matching wits with new-age thieves and successfully tracking them down and putting an end to their high-tech deception.”

Raage is said to have conspired with other suspects back in Kenya to contact officials at the two colleges claiming to be Dell service representatives.

They then told the college officials to redirect their Dell payments to an account in Minnesota that was controlled by Raage.

Raage and his crew managed to illegally obtain $749,158.37 from the University of California and $123,643.77 from the Pennsylvanian college.

Raage fled to Kenya in September last year after his US banks accounts were frozen. In May this year, Kenyan police arrested him and extradited him back to the US to face fraud charges.

It remains unknown whether Raage’s Kenyan accomplices will be extradited to the US for trial.