US COURT JAILS NIGERIAN MAN 97 MONTHS FOR $6M INHERITANCE FRAUD TARGETING ELDERLY AMERICANS

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By Aishat Momoh. O.

A United States court has sentenced a Nigerian national, Tochukwu Albert Nnebocha, to 97 months’ imprisonment for his role in a transnational inheritance fraud scheme that targeted elderly and vulnerable Americans.

According to a statement published on the US Department of Justice (DOJ) website on Friday, Nnebocha, 44, participated in a years-long conspiracy that defrauded hundreds of victims across the United States.

The DOJ said Nnebocha and his co-conspirators operated a lucrative international fraud scheme for more than seven years, during which they sent hundreds of thousands of personalised letters to elderly individuals in the US. The letters falsely claimed the recipients were entitled to multimillion-dollar inheritances allegedly left by deceased relatives and held by a bank in Spain.

Victims were subsequently instructed to pay various fees, including delivery charges, taxes and other processing costs, before they could access the fictitious inheritance.

“In total, the defendant and his co-conspirators defrauded over 400 U.S. victims of more than $6 million,” the Justice Department said.

Nnebocha was arrested in Poland in April 2025 and extradited to the United States in September 2025. He later pleaded guilty in November 2025 to conspiracy to commit mail fraud and wire fraud.

At sentencing, the court also ordered him to serve three years of supervised release and to pay restitution exceeding $6.8 million to the victims.

The DOJ noted that the case is the second indictment connected to the international fraud scheme, adding that eight co-conspirators from the United Kingdom, Spain, Portugal and Nigeria have previously been convicted and sentenced.

The investigation was conducted by the US Postal Inspection Service and Homeland Security Investigations, with support from the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Legal Attaché in Poland, INTERPOL, Polish authorities, the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida and the DOJ’s Office of International Affairs.

Senior Trial Attorney Phil Toomajian and Trial Attorney Joshua D. Rothman of the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section prosecuted the case.