They moved money from Nigerian bank accounts they controlled to the Nigerian bank accounts specified by Iro and Igbokwe. Once the conspirators managed to talk victims into sending money, Iro and Igbokwe allegedly ran a massive money-laundering network that relied on a network of money mules who used a Nigerian banking application to transfer funds from their US bank accounts in naira (₦) – the currency of Nigeria. They were basically brokers of bank accounts, the indictment alleges: co-conspirators would allegedly contact Iro and Igbokwe in order to set them up with bank and money-service accounts that could receive the funds they allegedly scammed out of victims. The suspects also allegedly tried to get at another $40 million.Īccording to the criminal complaint, which was also unsealed on Thursday, the two heads of the conspiracy were Valentine Iro, 31, of Carson, California, and Chukwudi Christogunus Igbokwe, 38, of Gardena, California, both Nigerian citizens. The conspirators allegedly used various online fraud schemes, including business email compromise (BEC) frauds, romance scams, and schemes targeting the elderly, to defraud victims of a total $6 million. The hunt is still on for most of the remaining defendants, who are believed to be abroad – mostly in Nigeria. Two of the defendants were already in federal custody on other charges, and one was arrested earlier last week. The indictment was unsealed after law enforcement arrested 14 defendants across the US, with 11 of those arrests taking place around Los Angeles. She began crying when discussing the way that these losses have affected her. was and is extremely depressed and angry about these losses. She wound up $200,000 poorer and on the verge of bankruptcy. borrowed money from her sister, her ex-husband and her friends to help out her fake boyfriend, but in the end, there were no diamonds. Over the course of 10 months, Garcia described in daily emails his scheme to smuggle diamonds out of the country.į.K. Terry Garcia”, who was stationed in Syria. thought she was corresponding with a captain in the US Army captain, “Capt. Identified only as “F.K.” in the indictment, the Japanese woman first met the fraudster who would come to bleed her of hundreds of thousands of dollars on an international social network for digital pen pals.į.K. The US Department of Justice (DOJ) on Thursday unsealed a 252-count, 145-page federal indictment charging 80 defendants – most of them Nigerian nationals – with conspiring to steal millions of dollars through online frauds that targeted businesses, the elderly and women.įederal authorities cited the case of one of those romance-scam victims during a news conference on Thursday.
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