A U.S.-based Nigerian, Adetomiwa Akindele, has been sentenced to about six years in prison over $1.6 million romance/wire fraud and will be deported to Nigeria after serving out his time in prison.
The United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Colorado sentenced Mr Akindele, ordering him to pay “$1,692,945 in restitution.”
“Mr Akindele, age 37, a Nigerian national who had been residing in Minnesota prior to his arrest, has been sentenced to 71 months in federal prison,” a statement by the U.S. Department of Justice on Tuesday said. “Mr Akindele upon serving his sentence, will be deported to Nigeria.”
This sentence followed Mr Akindele’s pleading guilty to one count of wire fraud and one count of money laundering.
According to Mr Akindele’s plea agreement with the U.S. authorities, beginning in January 2018, and continuing until October 2018, he posed as a wealthy Italian American businessman, “Frank Labato,” on a dating website, where he met a widowed Colorado woman. In February 2018, Akindele began emailing the victim, and in March 2018, the two began exchanging telephone calls.
In the course of their communication, Mr Akindele in March 2018, lied to his victim that he had “encountered a financial crisis related to his purported work abroad for which he claimed to need money, funds, and assistance from the victim.”
“At Mr Akindele’s direction, the victim opened a cryptocurrency exchange account, where she eventually wired over $1.6 million dollars as directed by Akindele. From there, Akindele converted the money into various cryptocurrencies, laundered it across multiple crypto exchanges and then converted it back into U.S. dollars and deposited it into his own bank accounts,” the DoJ said.
Though Mr Akindele told his victim he was taking the $1.6 million as a loan and would repay her, he failed after three “promissory notes” assuring his victim.
The United States Attorney Peter McNeilly said Mr Akindele’s “sentence both serves justice to the victim and helps prevent this individual from scamming someone else. This case should be a reminder to the public to be cautious when engaging with people they meet online – especially when those people are asking for money.”
Mr Akindele’s sentence came after the jailing by U.S. court of another Nigerian for involvement in fraud.
In August, the Apetu of Ipetumodu in Osun State, Joseph Oloyede, was sentenced to five years in prison in the U.S. over his role in a multimillion-dollar COVID-19 relief fraud.
