A 33-year-old Nigerian man, Olugbenga Lawal, of Indianapolis, Indiana, United States, has been sentenced to 10 years in prison over love scam. The United States Department of Justice was said to have worked with a crime kingpin in Nigeria to defraud US citizens and businesses of millions of dollars. They were involved in love scams and email scams. Lawal and his associates were found to target the elderly with love and defraud them of huge sums of money, laundering the proceeds to banks accounts. Between January 2019 and June 2020, bank accounts used by Lawal and his co-conspirators to launder money…
Author: Olowofela Adebanji
The Nigerians in Diaspora Commission (NIDCOM) has warned Nigerians abroad, government agencies , embassies and high commissions to ignore illegal diaspora groups masquerading as authentic. NIDCOM’s Director of Media, Public Relations and Protocols Unit, Abdur-Rahman Balogun, issued this warning in a post on X last Tuesday. He said a group, Nigeria Diaspora Forum, had established an office in Abuja for the welfare of Nigerians in the Diaspora, adding that the group has evil and political intentions. He warned Nigerians, ministries, agencies and embassies to be wary of the NDF. The statement said that NIDCOM is the only Commission authorized by…
A Nigerian man is in trouble in the United States over an inheritance fraud scheme. Fifty-year-old Amos Prince Okey Ezemma was arrested at the Washington Dulles International Airport on December 7, 2023 before he was arraigned on December 20 in Miami. Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), the Department of Justice’s Consumer Protection Branch and the US Postal Inspection Service are investigating the case. Ezemma and his co-defendants Ezennia Peter Neboh; Kennedy Ikponmwosa; Iheanyichukwu Jonathan Abraham; 44; Emmanuel Samuel, 39; and Jerry Chucks Ozor, 43; all of London, were all arrested in April 2022 by authorities in Madrid and London. Ezemma was…
A Canadian woman who adopted a child in Nigeria has lamented the continued delay in issuing him a passport to join her in the North American country. Charlene Berkvens had adopted her son, now seven years old, two years ago in Lagos but the Immigration, Refugees and Citizen Canada (IRCC) has delayed issuing him the necessary documents to begin life with her in Canada. Before the adoption, Berkvens, who live in Winnipeg, Manitoba, went through three years of home visits from social workers, parental training programs, police record checks, reviews and approval from the Manitoba government, all while working with adoption agencies.…
A Nigerian hacker, Olusegun Samson Adejorin, has been arrested in Ghana for stealing $7.5 million (N8.25 billion) from charities in the United States. He was arrested on December 29, 2023, for defrauding two charity organisations in Maryland and New York. Adejorin faces charges for wire fraud, aggravated identity theft, and unauthorized access to a protected computer linked to attacks aimed at two Maryland-based charitable organizations, culminating in the embezzlement of $7.5 million. The US Department of Justice said the suspect committed the crimes between June and August 2020, getting unauthorized access to email accounts and impersonating employees. He reportedly posed…
A 33-year-old Nigerian man, Okari Bright, has been arrested in India with cocaine worth around N13.39 million (Rs 12.5 lakh). The Thane police arrested him last December in possession of 31 grams of cocaine to be delivered for the festive season. Bright, a resident of Pragati nagar of Nallasopara, Mumbai, was intercepted after police got a tip-off of his illicit business. Inspector Vikas Ghodke, who led the team, told a court that they recovered a Nigerian passport from the suspect. He told the Times of India that the operation was a special one launched during the festive season as the…
A former chief executive officer of Tingo Group, Odogwu Banye Mmobuosi, a.k.a. Dozy Mmobuosi, has been charged with fraud by United States prosecutors in Manhattan. The Nigerian was accused of orchestrating a massive scheme between 209 and 2023 to inflate Tingo’s financial statements, trying to portray Tingo Mobile, a cellular company, and Tingo Foods, an agriculture company, he founded as profitable and generating hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue, when they were actually struggling. The United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Damian Williams, and James Smith, the Assistant Director in Charge of the New York…
A 25-year-old Nigerian woman has narrated her story of tears, suffering, rape and an unwanted pregnancy as she made her way from Benin, the Edo State capital, to Italy through the torrid route of Libya. Speaking to Al Jazeera, she said she took the difficult decision of japaing to Europe through Libya after she lost her parents in four years, leaving her to cater to five siblings. Naomi Iwelu said she could not continue her education and dropped out in secondary school. Pushed to the wall and facing an uncertain future, she decided to leave Benin in 2018. She said…
Police in Canada have shot dead Afolabi Stephen Opaso, a Nigerian student, in Manitoba. The family of the 19-year-old, said to be a student of the University of Manitoba before his death, are asking questions about the incident. They claim he was experiencing a mental health crisis before his death. Jean-Rene Dominique Kwilu, a lawyer assisting the family, questioned the shooting, insisting that if the police had wanted to unarm the deceased said to be in possession of two knives, the shot was unnecessary. Police said a well-being call was made about an armed man acting erratically at an apartment…
Many universities have deregistered students in the United Kingdom and advised them to leave the country according to a tweet by the president of Nigerians in the United Kingdom (NIUK), Benjamin Kuti, also known as Oluomo of Derby. Although the reported increase in deregistration has also affected students from other countries, there are indications that for Nigerian students this may be due to foreign exchange scarcity and restrictions on part-time job hours particularly after recent immigration rules being implemented by the UK government. Nigerian students, according to several affected students, have difficulty processing fee payments from their Nigerian banks, causing…