September 5, 2024 – WASHINGTON – Three alleged conspirators – Chidi Olujie, 36, a Nigerian citizen and resident of Maryland and the District of Columbia, Jennifer Chibueze, 36, a Nigerian citizen and resident of Maryland, and Jessica Nortey, 32, a Ghanaian citizen and resident of Maryland – are charged with conspiring to launder over $1 million in proceeds from a romance scam and other online frauds, according to an indictment unsealed on Wednesday.

The charges were announced by U.S. Attorney Matthew M. Graves and Acting Special Agent in Charge David Geist of the FBI Washington Field Office’s Criminal and Cyber Division.

“Online fraud schemes require people who are willing and able to launder the money stolen through these schemes,” said U.S. Attorney Graves. “Today’s indictment reflects our commitment to aggressively prosecute the launderers whom we believe are enabling the fraudsters.”

As charged in the indictment, between 2016 and 2019, Olujie, Chibueze, and Nortey each played roles in laundering the proceeds of different online scams. Among other things, they allegedly created companies and bank accounts that they then used to move and launder money obtained in fraud schemes, which included:

• $774,150 from a victim of an online romance scam in 2017 through 2018;
• $84,320 from victims who believed they were consummating a business transaction in 2018;
• $140,000 stolen from a victim’s bank account in 2019; and
• over $37,000 in funds misdirected from a victim company in 2019 as a result of an email hack – commonly referred to as a “business email compromise” scheme.

Each of the defendants are charged with conspiracy to launder monetary instruments and aggravated identity theft.  If convicted, the defendants would face up to 20 years in prison on the money laundering conspiracy counts and an additional two years on the identity theft counts.

Online fraud comes in many forms. Business email compromise (BEC) scams typically involve a combination of computer intrusion techniques and social engineering to misdirect a transfer of funds into a bank account controlled by the fraudsters. For example, conspirators might hack a victim company’s computers, monitor their emails, and then use the knowledge they gain to trick customers into sending their payments to a bank account controlled by the conspirators rather than the company’s real account. Romance scams involve impersonating a person who pretends to express romantic interest in a victim in order to build trust over time during an online relationship; scammers then later trick that victim into transferring funds, believing they are helping their romantic interest.

This case was investigated by the FBI’s Washington Field Office. It is being prosecuted by the Fraud, Public Corruption, and Civil Rights Section of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia.

An indictment is merely an allegation, and all defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.

Attachment: olujie_et_al_indictment.pdf [PDF, 6 MB]

Source: DOJ Release