The United States Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) has frozen over half a million dollars in cryptocurrency assets from Nigerian businessman Henry Okolo, according to court filings seen by Peoples Gazette.
American authorities have accused Mr. Okolo of money laundering and wire fraud. The filings indicate that he persuaded a U.S. victim to sell his home and transfer the proceeds to him.
On June 7, 2024, a court motion to confiscate approximately $196,503 from Mr. Okolo’s crypto holdings was filed.
The U.S. government is actively seeking Mr. Okolo’s arrest. He allegedly scammed a U.S. citizen through a pig-butchering scheme, a type of investment scam. The victim, who was only identified as “the victim,” connected with someone claiming to be Lisa Warren on a Facebook dating group in April 2022. Their relationship developed through phone calls, SMS, and emails, during which Ms. Warren, posing as a cryptocurrency trading expert, convinced the victim to invest in crypto.
Ms. Warren claimed to live in Dayton, Ohio, and work for Berox Trading in Idaho, though investigations revealed no records of such a company in Idaho.
The victim, who had recently lost nearly half a million dollars in another fraud scheme, invested $55,000 between April and November 2022, hoping to recover his losses. Following Ms. Warren’s instructions, the victim created a Coinbase account, purchased Bitcoin, and sent it to a wallet controlled by her.
In December 2022, Ms. Warren told the victim he was making substantial returns and encouraged him to sell his home to invest more, promising a new home where they could live together. When the victim requested a refund and a meeting, Ms. Warren declined and returned only $15,000 of the over $587,197 invested. This led the victim to suspect fraud.
He visited the address on Ms. Warren’s driver’s license, which turned out to be fake. The Dayton Police Department confirmed the license was fake, and the case was escalated to the FBI.
The FBI traced the victim’s Bitcoin to Ms. Warren’s wallet and then to a Binance address registered to Henry Okolo. Okolo immediately converted the funds to USDT (Tether), valued at approximately $196,721. Binance alerted the FBI, and the funds were confiscated.
Further investigations showed Mr. Okolo transferred funds to multiple wallets, with substantial amounts going to four individuals: Chibueze Samuel Okpala, Kaodilichukwu Augustine Echem, Izuchukwu Henry Okolo, and Chinonso Ikechukwu Ezenwuba. Most of the Bitcoin eventually returned to Mr. Okolo’s wallet and was converted to Tether, totaling $527,355.32.
Mr. Okolo then withdrew the funds to a private Tether address. The FBI traced significant amounts to Mr. Okpala’s Kucoin address, which was converted to Bitcoin and transferred to another private Bitcoin address.
The FBI froze the wallet and funds, as they were involved in money laundering. The “Know Your Customer” details for the Binance addresses showed the Nigerian passports of Messrs Echem, Okolo, Okpala, and Ezenwuba. The U.S. security agency confirmed that Mr. Okolo accessed his accounts from Nigeria.
Mr. Okolo defended himself by claiming his business involved exchanging cryptocurrencies for naira in a Person-to-Person (P2P) manner. However, the FBI found that he sold USDT for Canadian dollars, contradicting his assertion.
The FBI is asking the court to issue a warrant for Mr. Okolo’s arrest, who describes himself as a Lagos-based logistics consultant, so he can “appear and show cause why the forfeiture should not be decreed.”
