A United States court has sentenced a Nigerian, Edikan Adiakpan, to 30 months in federal prison for illegally transmitting proceeds of a business email fraud.
Adiakpan, 35, was sentenced in the Southern District of Texas by Judge Andrew Hanen. The prison term is to be followed by three years of supervised release. He pleaded guilty on 12 May to illegal money transmission. At the time of his arrest he was a Nigerian citizen with temporary legal status in the United States.
Between 2020 and 2022, Adiakpan used Akama Lifestyle, a company he controlled and advertised as a luxury car service, to move funds for others. He kept a percentage of the transferred money as a fee.
The funds came from a business email compromise scheme that targeted more than 10 victims. The fraudsters sent spoofed emails that appeared to come from known suppliers and creditors, and victims were tricked into paying accounts controlled by the fraudsters rather than the real suppliers.
A small utility trailer company in Mississippi was deceived into wiring 927,080 dollars. Adiakpan deposited and redeemed cashier’s cheques payable to himself and to the car company. Those cheques contained 359,000 dollars of that victim’s money.
A co defendant, Ayobami Omoniyi, also a Nigerian, was sentenced on 24 March to 32 months in federal prison for his role in the same scheme.
The case was investigated by the FBI in Houston, including its Bryan office, and by Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation. It was prosecuted by the office of the United States Attorney for the Southern District of Texas.
By A. Ikechukwu
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