Two Nigerians, Okechuckwu Osuji and Tolulope Bodunde, who were co-conspirators in a business email compromise scheme, have been sentenced to a combined jail term of 10 years by a United States federal jury.
Their conviction was contained in a press statement signed by the Office of the Public Affairs, US Department of Justice on Friday.
According to the statement, Osuji and Bodunde were jailed following their conviction in a fraudulent scheme that targeted US companies and elderly citizens, leading to a loss of about $6 million to their victims.
It was gathered from the statement that Osuji was sentenced to eight years imprisonment on Wednesday while Bodunde was jailed for two years in a judgment delivered on October 16, 2024.
The statement disclosed that court documents indicated that 39-year-old Osuji alongside his conspirators, often pretended as trustworthy entities by communicating with their victims to obtain money.
It read, “Okechuckwu Valentine Osuji, 39, a Nigerian national, was sentenced yesterday in New Haven, Connecticut, to eight years in prison for operating a business email compromise scheme out of multiple countries, including the United States.
“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.”
While chronicling the modus operandi of the convicts, the statement stressed that they lure their victims into transferring money into a bank account under their control.
One of the convicts’ victims was said to have been declared bankrupt after depleting her life savings to a member of the group.
It continued, “The victims included a Connecticut-based financial company, a Colorado-based lending company, an Alaska-based nonprofit performing arts organisation, 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 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.”
Osuji was said to have been extradited from Malaysia in 2022 and was found guilty of “conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, and aggravated identity theft” on May 1, 2024.
“As a result of the scheme, losses and intended losses totalled over $6 million. At his sentencing hearing, Osuji was ordered to pay restitution to his victims.
“Another co-conspirator, Tolulope Bodunde, also a citizen of Nigeria, pleaded guilty and was sentenced on Oct. 16 to two years in prison,” the statement concluded.
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