Yesterday, a Nigerian man was given a term for his involvement in a variety of online frauds that resulted in the theft of over $1.3 million from about 125 victims.a
Judge Leo T. Sorokin of the United States District Court handed Esogie Osawaru, 30, a sentence that included six months in prison followed by two years of supervised release. In addition, the court ordered Osawaru to pay restitution and forfeiture totaling $1,340,516. Osawaru entered a guilty plea on November 20, 2020, admitting guilt to one count of conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud as well as one count of money laundering. In June of 2020, Osawaru was taken into custody together with another suspect named Nosayamen Iyalekhue.
Osawaru and Iyalekhue were participants in a string of internet frauds, including romance scams, pandemic unemployment insurance scams, and other types of online cons, all of which were aimed to defraud victims by convincing them to wire money to accounts controlled by the defendants. Osawaru is believed to have registered at least six bank accounts using phoney foreign passports that were issued in the names of aliases but bore images of him. Co-conspirators instructed victims to pay money to Osawaru’s accounts. After that, Osawaru and Iyalekhue quickly removed the money belonging to the victims from a number of different bank offices and ATMs, frequently doing so many times within the span of a single day. The victims, who were frequently old, had thousands of dollars stolen from them, and in other cases, their whole life savings was taken from them. During the COVID-19 outbreak, one of the methods was attempting to claim unemployment insurance benefits in the name of other people.
After previously pleading guilty to his role in the conspiracy, Iyalekhue was sentenced to 63 months in prison and three years of supervised release in March of 2021.
The statement was made by Joshua S. Levy, who is serving as the acting United States Attorney, and Jodi Cohen, who is the Special Agent in Charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Boston Division. The prosecution of the case is being handled by Assistant United States Attorneys Kristen A. Kearney and Ian J. Stearns of the Securities, Financial, and Cyber Fraud Unit.
