Nigerian national sentenced to 45 months imprisonment in US over $6m wire fraud

Thursday, November 7, 2024 - A 41-year-old Nigerian national, Alex Ogunshakin, has been sentenced in federal court in Omaha, Nebraska, the United States for stealing more than $6 million in a wire fraud scheme that victimized two businesses.

United States Attorney Susan Lehr announced that Senior US District John M. Gerrard sentenced Ogunshakin to a total of 45 months’ imprisonment on October 31, 2024 for conspiracy to commit wire fraud. 

There is no parole in the federal system. After Ogunshakin’s release from prison, he will begin a 3-year term of supervised release and is subject to removal from the United States. 

Ogunshakin, who was on the FBI's Cyber's Most Wanted list, was extradited to the United States in 2023. 

From sometime no later than January 2015, continuing to September 2016, Ogunshakin participated in a scheme to defraud U.S. based businesses. 

As a part of the scheme, Ogunshakin and other individuals participated in a business email compromise scheme in which co-conspirators used compromised e-mail accounts to send spoofed emails to thousands of business employees who handled accounting, to include authorizing and sending wire transfers. 

A spoofed e-mail is one in which the e-mail appears to be originating from a sender other than who is truly the sender. 

Co-conspirators spoofed e-mail addressed to pose as the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) or other business executives and would direct recipients of the e-mail to complete wire transfers. 

The business employee, thinking the wire transfer request was legitimate, would comply with the wire transfer and send money to a location providing in wiring instructions. 

Ogunshakin and other co-conspirators provided bank account information to the co-conspirators who sent the spoofed e-mails to the business executives.

In February 2015 and May 2015, two Nebraska based businesses were targeted by the scheme. The investigation into the scheme revealed over 70 U.S. based business were victimized and the loss amount exceed $6 million, with attempted losses exceeding $30 million. 

Ogunshakin and the co-conspirators committed the offense from outside the United States, mostly from Nigeria.  At the request of the United States, Nigerian authorities arrested Ogunshakin for the purpose of his extradition in October 2020, a court in Nigeria found him extraditable in July 2023, and Nigerian authorities extradited him to the United States in September 2023. 

The Justice Department’s Office of International Affairs provided substantial assistance in securing the arrest and extradition of Ogunshakin in coordination with the FBI’s Legal Attaché in Abuja, Nigeria’s Office of the Attorney General and Federal Ministry of Justice, and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission.

Ogunshakin’s co-conspirator, Adewale Akinloye, was sentenced to 96 months’ imprisonment in February 2019. Co-conspirators Richard Uzuh, Felix Okpoh, and Nnamdi Benson all remain at large. Co-conspirator Abiola Kayode’s extradition proceedings are ongoing. 

The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Lecia E. Wright for the District of Nebraska.