A 36-year-old Nigerian national, Okezie Ogbata, has been sentenced to 97 months jail term in the United States for his role in a $6 million transnational inheritance fraud scheme.
The United States Department of Justice disclosed this in a statement released on Monday.
Ogbata was found to be a member of a group of fraudsters that sent personalised letters to elderly people across the United States for several years.
The scheme defrauded over 400 individuals, mostly elderly or vulnerable, resulting in losses of more than $6 million.
The letters falsely claimed that the sender was a representative of a bank in Spain and that the recipient was entitled to receive a multimillion-dollar inheritance left for the recipient by a family member who had died overseas years before.
Ogbata pleaded guilty to the charges and admitted to defrauding over $6m from more than 400 victims.
According to court documents, Ogbata and his co-conspirators deceived victims by insisting that, before receiving their supposed inheritance, they were required to pay various fees, such as delivery charges, taxes, and other costs, to avoid government scrutiny.
“Ogbata and his co-conspirators collected money sent in response to the fraudulent letters through a complex web of U.S.-based former victims, whom the defendants convinced to receive and forward funds to them or their associates.
“Victims who sent money never received any purported inheritance funds,” the statement read.
The statement quoted acting Assistant Attorney General Yaakov Roth of the Justice Department’s Civil Division, as describing the case as a testament to the critical role of international collaboration in tackling transnational crime.
“I want to thank our U.S. law enforcement partners, as well as those who assisted across the globe, including the Portuguese Judicial Police and Public Prosecution Service of Portugal, for their outstanding contributions to this case,” Roth said.
