A U.S. court has sentenced Nigerian national Okezie Bonaventure Ogbata to over eight years in prison for orchestrating a large-scale international fraud scheme that targeted more than 400 American citizens.
According to court filings, Ogbata, 36, carried out the elaborate scam over several years by deceiving mainly elderly and vulnerable individuals. He sent customized letters falsely claiming to represent a bank in Spain and informed recipients that they were beneficiaries of a non-existent multimillion-dollar inheritance from a deceased relative abroad.
To access the alleged inheritance, victims were asked to pay various fees, including delivery charges and taxes. These payments were funneled into accounts managed by Ogbata’s network, which included both his co-conspirators and victims he had already manipulated into trusting him.
Ogbata admitted to defrauding hundreds of Americans and stealing more than $6 million before being apprehended through a joint effort involving U.S. law enforcement and European
