Nigerian national extradited from Malaysia sentenced to eight years imprisonment in US for $6.3 million fraud.

A 39-year-old Nigerian national, Okechuckwu Valentine Osuji, was sentenced in New Haven, Connecticut, to eight years in prison for operating a business email compromise scheme out of multiple countries, including the United States.

Osuji was sentenced on Wednesday, December 4, 2024,  two years after he was arrested in Malaysia and extradited to the United States in 2022.

The United States Department of Justice announced this in a statement on Thursday, December 5.

According to court documents and statements made in court, Osuji and his co-conspirators targeted specific individuals and businesses by masquerading as trustworthy entities in electronic communications to obtain money.

They used witting and unwitting “money mules” to receive fraud proceeds in their bank accounts and then either transferred those funds from the money mule accounts to accounts under the co-conspirators’ control or converted the stolen proceeds to cash for further transfer.

Over the years-long operation of the scheme, numerous victims were tricked into transferring funds into bank accounts the victims believed were under the control of legitimate recipients as part of normal business operations. In reality, the bank accounts were controlled by Osuji and his co-conspirators.

The victims included a Connecticut-based financial company, a Colorado-based lending company, an Alaska-based nonprofit performing arts organization, a New York-based food and beverage company, and many others.

The scheme also involved the exploitation of elderly individuals through romance scams to serve as some of the unwitting money mules, including one woman who testified at trial that she was duped into sending her own personal savings and income, including Social Security checks, to an individual she believed to be her romantic partner, but who was in fact one of Osuji’s co-conspirators.

The scam resulted in the near-total depletion of her life savings, caused her to declare bankruptcy, and led to the repossession of her house. Her personal bank account was also used to facilitate the fraud against one of the companies targeted by Osuji.