Ogbata pleaded guilty to the charges and admitted to defrauding over $6m from more than 400 victims.
Okezie Ogbata, a 36-year-old Nigerian, has been sentenced to 97 months in U.S. prison for orchestrating a transnational inheritance fraud that duped over 400 victims of $6 million. The U.S. Department of Justice revealed Ogbata’s group sent fake letters posing as a Spanish bank, claiming recipients owed multimillion-dollar inheritances from deceased relatives. Victims were coerced into paying bogus fees, with funds routed through a network of unwitting intermediaries. “Victims who sent money never received any purported inheritance,” the DOJ stated.