Francis Mogambi was arrested and is being held while awaiting trial. If convicted, he faces a mandatory minimum prison term of at least 10 years because of the identity-theft charges.

The U.S. Department of Justice has announced charges in Operation Ghostbusters, a nationwide investigation into a large “ghost student” fraud scheme that allegedly used stolen American identities to obtain federal student aid, BBC reports.

The scheme is linked to people in Kenya and has led to five indictments, with more than 40 investigations still open.

Federal student aid is meant to help real students pay for college. Fraudsters allegedly used stolen personal information from U.S. citizens to submit fake FAFSA applications and enroll “ghost students” in colleges and universities. These fake students never attended classes.

After the colleges released financial-aid refunds, people in the United States, often called “money mules”, received the money in bank accounts.

They kept a share and sent the rest to suspected co-conspirators in Kenya through bank transfers, money-service businesses, and cryptocurrency.

To keep the payments coming, the alleged fraudsters reportedly made it look as though the fake students were still enrolled by completing coursework and other required academic activity. This allowed the scheme to continue semester after semester.

In September and October 2026, investigators identified 830,840 potentially fraudulent Federal Student Aid IDs linked to nearly Sh16 billion ($130 million) in aid.

They recommended that the Department of Education disable those IDs. This figure refers to potentially fraudulent accounts, not confirmed losses.

The FBI has separately identified more than Sh4 billion ($32 million) in confirmed or identified losses from similar ghost-student schemes, and officials believe the wider fraud may exceed Sh25 billion ($200 million).

Some of the main cases happened in Nebraska, whereby a Kenyan citizen Francis Mogambi is accused of using stolen U.S. identities to enroll fake students and redirect aid payments. Prosecutors say he kept 30% and sent the rest to Kenya. The alleged intended loss was Sh2 million ($20,000).

While in Virginia, a sealed indictment accuses a Kenyan national of receiving more than 700 fraudulent aid refunds worth about Sh186 million ($1.44 million) and moving at least Sh168 million ($1.3 million) through accounts in the U.S. and Kenya.

Meanwhile in New Jersey, three people are accused of acting as money mules. They allegedly received over Sh129 million ($1 million) in fraudulent student-aid funds, kept part of it, and sent the remainder to Kenya, including people linked to a purported safari company.

Francis Mogambi, who was indicted on October 19, 2026, on five counts of theft of government money and five counts of aggravated identity theft.

He was arrested and is being held while awaiting trial. If convicted, he faces a mandatory minimum prison term of at least 10 years because of the identity-theft charges.