Federal prosecutors have charged five people in what the Justice Department describes as a nationwide scheme using identities stolen from U.S. citizens to enroll "ghost students" in college and funnel federal student aid to bank accounts tied to Kenya.

The charges, announced Thursday, are the results of a nationwide DOJ investigation known as “Operation Ghostbusters.” DOJ said the fraud has been underway since at least 2021, estimating that well over $200 million had been stolen from the U.S. government. Investigators flagged 830,840 potentially fraudulent Federal Student Aid IDs tied to nearly $130 million this fall alone, the DOJ said.

“Today, we are announcing the first results of Operation Ghostbusters — a nationwide effort to stop a major fraud scheme targeting federal student aid, low-income Americans, and the American taxpayer,” Assistant Attorney General Colin McDonald of the Justice Department’s National Fraud Enforcement Division said in a statement. 

“The Department is charging five defendants and announcing the seizure of more than $750,000 in cryptocurrency tied to this scheme through a network associated with Kenyan nationals. This is the first international seizure of its kind in Kenya," McDonald said. "If you steal American identities, if you steal taxpayer dollars, if you exploit programs meant to help students build a future — we will find you. Whether you are in Nebraska, New Jersey, Virginia, or Nairobi, we will pursue you.”

40 cases across 26 FBI field offices and more than 20 U.S. attorneys' offices

Under Secretary Nicholas Kent for the Department of Education added that, under President Trump and Education Secretary Linda McMahon, the DOE “has saved taxpayers more than $2 billion in attempted student aid theft.”

The scale of the probe includes more than 40 cases across 26 FBI field offices and more than 20 U.S. attorneys' offices. It began when the FBI office in Richmond, Va., received a referral from the Education Department’s inspector general.

In one example, DOJ said Kenyan citizen Francis Mogambi was indicted by a grand jury in Nebraska on 10 counts, five of theft of government money and five of aggravated identity theft. He faces 10 years in mandatory minimums and has been arrested and detained as a potential flight risk, DOJ said. Mogambi is accused of fraudulently obtaining federal student financial aid using stolen identities from U.S. citizens, which were allegedly stolen with the help of associates in Kenya. 

The BBC reported that Mogambi arrived in the United States in May 2024 after winning the Diversity Visa lottery.

According to prosecutors, Mogambi then allegedly enrolled those stolen identities in educational institutions and redirected the federal financial aid checks to himself, keeping 30% and sending the rest to his associates in Kenya. Mogambi is alleged to have participated in the scheme between November 2025 and May 2026, and allegedly told an individual he tried to recruit that he received $2,000 a week for the fraud.

In New Jersey, three individuals were arrested after they allegedly conspired with people in Kenya to obtain more than $1 million in federal student aid funds. According to DOJ, Mabed Patricia Utate-Alberto, Patricia Arisleydi Perez, and George Arturo Alfau Mendez acted as money mules using U.S. bank accounts to receive the FSA funds obtained with fraudulent applications using stolen U.S. identities. The three have not yet entered pleas.

The fifth arrested individual has not been named, but is also alleged to have worked with associates in Kenya to steal federal financial aid using stolen U.S. identities. A grand jury in Virginia returned the indictment, and DOJ alleges that this fraudster used multiple bank accounts across several financial institutions to receive more than 700 fraudulently obtained federal student aid refund deposits, collecting more than $1.4 million in stolen funds.