Cyber Money Launderer Sentenced to 11 Years

A dual Canadian and U.S. national was sentenced to 140 months in federal prison for conspiring to launder tens of millions of dollars stolen in various wire and bank fraud schemes, including a massive online banking theft by North Korean cyber criminals.

Ghaleb Alaumary, 36, of Mississauga, Ontario, was sentenced after pleading guilty to two counts of conspiracy to commit money laundering. As part of his sentence, Alaumary is also required to pay more than $30 million in restitution to victims and serve three years of supervised release after completion of his prison sentence.

“International money launderers provide critical services to cybercriminals, helping hackers and fraudsters to avoid detection and hide their illicit profits,” said Assistant Attorney General Kenneth A. Polite Jr. for the Justice Department’s Criminal Division. “Small and large companies, a university, banks and others lost tens of millions of dollars in this scheme. Alaumary’s sentence today reflects how seriously the Department of Justice considers the critical role that money launderers play in global cybercrime.”

Alaumary laundered money for a rogue nation and some of the world’s worst cybercriminals, and he managed a team of co-conspirators who helped to line the pockets and digital wallets of thieves. But U.S. law enforcement, working in conjunction with its partners throughout the world, will bring to justice fraudsters who think they can hide behind a computer screen.

According to court documents, Alaumary and his coconspirators used business email compromise schemes, ATM cash-outs and bank cyber-heists to steal money from victims and then launder the money through bank accounts and digital currency. He previously pleaded guilty in the Southern District of Georgia in two money laundering cases.

In the first case, which was filed and investigated in the Southern District of Georgia, Alaumary conspired with others who sent fraudulent “spoofed” emails to a university in Canada in 2017 to make it appear the emails were from a construction company requesting payment for a major building project. The university, believing it was paying the construction company, wired $11.8 million CAD (approximately $9.4 million USD) to a bank account controlled by Alaumary and his co-conspirators.

“This case is an example of our relentless determination to hold criminals accountable no matter how sophisticated their crimes may seem,” said Acting Special Agent in Charge Phil Wislar of the FBI’s Atlanta Field Office. “The arrest and sentencing of cyber criminals like Alaumary, who feel safe hiding behind a computer screen, are only possible through persistent investigative efforts of the FBI and our close collaboration with our U.S. and international partners.”

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