The U.S. Department of Justice has unsealed indictments in a nationwide ‘ghost student’ fraud scheme that used stolen American identities to enrol fake students in colleges and divert more than $32 million in federal student aid, with investigators linking parts of the network to Kenyan fraudsters.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation has seized over $750,000 in cryptocurrency in Kenya so far, according to the DOJ on Thursday. Investigators said the fraud had been ongoing since at least 2021, with estimates putting the scale of the fraud well over $200 million.
One of the Kenyan fraudsters, Francis Mogambi, who entered the United States on May 15, 2024, via the ‘Diversity Visa’ lottery and was issued a DV1 visa, was charged on October 19 with five counts of theft of government money and five counts of Aggravated identity theft in the District of Nebraska.
According to the indictment, between November 2025 and May 2026, Mr Mogambi fraudulently obtained federal student financial aid using stolen identities. He worked with associates in Kenya to steal identities of U.S. citizens, use those identities to fraudulently enrol American victims in educational institutions, and redirect federal financial aid checks to himself, keeping 30 per cent of the fraud proceeds and sending the rest to his conspirators in Kenya.
Mr Mogambi allegedly tried to recruit someone into his scheme. He openly shared details of the conspiracy to steal money from Americans, saying he received $2,000 a week and needed a business so he could cash larger checks and avoid paying taxes.
Mr Mogambi faces 10 years in mandatory minimums based on his use of stolen U.S. citizen identities during and in relation to his crimes.
In the District of New Jersey, beginning in or about March 2021 and continuing through at least January 2026, Mabed Patricia Utate-Alberto, also known as ‘Mabed Alberto Utate’, Patricia Arisleydi Perez, and George Arturo Alfau Mendez conspired with persons located in Kenya to defraud the Department of Education to obtain more than $1 million in FSA funds.
Two co-conspirators are located in Kenya and are associated with a safari company.
Similarly, in the Eastern District of Virginia, on October 21, a federal Grand Jury in the Eastern District of Virginia returned a multi-count indictment charging a Kenyan national with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and student aid fraud.
According to the indictment, the defendant conspired with fraudsters in Kenya to obtain and use the stolen identities of U.S. citizens to submit false FAFSA applications and steal more than $1.4 million in student aid. The defendant acted as a U.S. based money mule for the transnational fraud conspiracy.
The defendant used multiple bank accounts across several financial institutions to receive over 700 fraudulently obtained federal student aid refund deposits, totalling approximately $1,439,548. The defendant then engaged in thousands of wire transfer and money service business transactions that resulted in at least $1.3 million being transferred to accounts in the U.S. and Kenya.