London hacker charged for stealing $5 million from brokerage accounts

Hacker caused financial losses for the cybercrime that took place between 2011 and 2018

Hackers made 5 million dollars by hacking brokerage accounts of US-based firms

The London singer breached brokerage accounts and bought stocks, and manipulated prices. Idris Mustapha, known as Drizzle Lomo, had an online presence as living a lavish life and having expensive cars and jewelry, managed hack accounts, and caused $5 million in losses.^[1] The U.S Department of Justice has charged the man for the malicious activities.^[2]

It is believed that the London singer had a team of hackers who helped him to cause these losses of millions of dollars. The group launched cybercrime, widespread hacking, and fraud campaigns.^[3]

Taking over victims' email accounts and then stealing millions of dollars are just some of the crimes we allege Mustapha committed over the course of many years.

Mustapha caused direct system compromise of various entities in US-based financial institutions and brokerage firms. A hacker with his team performed unauthorized transactions using other brokerage accounts. The singer even traveled to New York from London back in 2015 to open a Bank of America account for the purpose of conducting the unauthorized trading later on.

Hackers actively worked to obtain account details

According to reports, Mustapha started his work in 2011 with at least one co-conspirator. He and another Lithuanian hacker used various methods to obtain unauthorized access to particular US-based email servers that supported financial accounts and particular brokerage account access to their customers.

Threat actors managed to steal email account credentials with usernames and passwords this way. Then used these details to log into the back sites and brokerage platforms. Access to these email accounts provided the opportunity to steal personal information and even get acquainted with the victims' activities and common habits, and communications.

Once the initial access was set, hackers used social engineering methods^[4] against institution employees. These campaigns included wire transfer requests to overseas bank accounts under the control of Mustapha. He accessed the particular brokerage accounts directly and transferred money or the entire online securities to other firms and new accounts.

Bypassing anti-fraud measures

The criminal managed to evade some of the imposed blocks that most financial firms have. The criminal used the hacked brokerage accounts to place unauthorized trades benefiting stocks under his control. This is how the fraudulent hacker managed to bypass the anti-fraud measures and collect money.

He successfully liquidated existing stock positions and engaged in market price manipulations using those stolen brokerage accounts. These operations have been active until the arrest in the United Kingdom in August 2021. Mustapha caused damages totaling more than $5 million. Even though some of the transfers were rejected and financial institutions noticed the fraudulent transfer activities.

London singer now faces ten counts. These include wire fraud, aggravated identity theft,^[5] securities fraud, money laundering, computer intrusion, access device fraud, other computer, and financial fraud charges. The criminal might face a minimum sentence of two years for these crimes. The verdict can go up to 20 years in prison.

Right now the fraudster is still in the United Kingdom, and the extradition should be trialed in the District Court for the Eastern District of New York. There are no other co-conspirators indicated or charged at this time besides the 32-year-old Idris Dayo Mustapha. However, it is possible that other individuals will be associated with cybercrime after the extradition to the US.