A U.S. court has sentenced a Lagos-based Yahoo Boy, Daniel Chima Inweregbu, to prison for his roles in wire fraud and romance scam.
The U.S. Department of Justice, in a statement on Friday, said Daniel Chima Inweregbu, 40, was sentenced to 33 months’ imprisonment by United States District Judge Nanette Jolivette Brown.
He was also handed a three-year supervised release following imprisonment, payment of a $100 special assessment fee and payment of restitution of $166,400.
Mr Inweregbu, who was extradited from the UK to face trial in the U.S., was sentenced after he pled guilty to conspiracy to commit mail fraud, wire fraud, and use of an assumed name to commit a mail fraud scheme and conspiracy to commit money laundering.
According to the Department of Justice, Mr Inweregbu targetted four American women, luring them into supposed romantic relationships before swindling them, resulting in “actual and intended losses to the four identified victims of over $405,000″.
Between at least July 1, 2017, and December 16, 2018, Mr Inweregbu and his co-conspirators devised and operated a romance scam whereby they sought to obtain money and property from multiple American women, including “Victim 1, a female born in 1965, Victim 2, a female born in March 1974, Victim 3, a female born in 1970, and Victim 4, a female born in 1976”, by means of false and fraudulent representations and promises, the statement said.
Disguising as ‘Larry Pham’, purportedly a middle-aged Canadian-born Vietnamese male on social media, to attract female victims, Mr Inweregbu and his allies used online messaging platforms and email, to contact victims, introduce themselves, and appeal to victims’ longing for companionship.
Upon cultivating an online romantic relationship with his victims, Mr Inweregbu, posing as Larry Pham, told the victims to send money under various scams and ruses to domestic bank accounts.
Mr Inweregbu and his co-conspirators laundered the funds by conducting financial transactions using the proceeds of their wire and mail fraud scheme, designed to conceal and disguise the nature, location, source, ownership, and control of the proceeds, by directing the funds through intermediaries.
