A Nigerian, Okechukwu Iwuji, has been sentenced by a court in the United States to almost four years in federal prison for an inheritance scheme involving over $2 million.
Iwuji, 38, was sentenced alongside two others last Thursday at the District Court of Guam for the charge of conspiracy to commit wire fraud.
An attorney from the US Attorney’s Office, Guam, Shawn Anderson said Iwuji was involved in an inheritance scheme in which he fraudulently obtained approximately $2.6 million from Guam-based investors by inducing them to “first pay bogus fees and other expenses purportedly associated with a multimillion-dollar inheritance before they could collect any promised funds”.
Iwuji pleaded guilty in February.
He was sentenced to 45 months in federal prison and ordered to pay $475,710 in restitution, the amount he received from co-conspirators before transferring the funds to third-party Nigerian bank accounts.
The co-conspirators are Sally Roberto, 56, from Santa Rita; Monique Jones, 49, from Dallas, Texas.
They were on Tuesday and Thursday sentenced for their crimes.
Another Nigerian, Jide Abimbola, was set to be sentenced on Wednesday but failed to appear in court.
A bench warrant was issued for the arrest of Abimbola, who pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud.
On July 12, U.S. District Judge Carlos E. Mendoza sentenced Iwuji to three years and six months in federal prison for mail fraud and aggravated identity theft.
The court also ordered Iwuji to pay $55,149 in restitution, which represents the loss amount.
Iwuji had pleaded guilty on April 19, 2023.
According to court documents, Iwuji acquired Personal Identifiable Information (PII) from the dark web and then accessed the Arizona Department of Economic Security/Unemployment Insurance Program’s (AZ-UI) website to create fraudulent claims for unemployment benefits on behalf of unsuspecting victims, the US Justice Department said in a statement.
“As a part of his scheme, Iwuji used the PII to gain access to existing beneficiary accounts, changing the mailing address for where the benefits would be delivered. Some of the fraudulent benefits were sent to a post office box in Orlando that had been established as a part of the scheme.
“This case was investigated by Homeland Security Investigations (HSI). It was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Ranganath Manthripragada,” the statement read.