N22Million Fraud: Nigerian Court Jails Man Wanted By FBI For Stealing Identities Of Americans

According to a report by SaharaReporters, Justice Oluwatoyin Taiwo of the Special Offences Court sitting in Ikeja, Lagos, has convicted and sentenced one Adekunle Abiodun Aderibigbe to two years in prison for internet fraud.

The operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Lagos Command had earlier arrested Aderibigbe, who had been on the watch list of the United States’ Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), for internet fraud.

A spokesman for the EFCC, Wilson Uwujaren, who announced the conviction of Aderibigbe on the anti-graft agency’s official Twitter handle - @officialEFCC, stated that the convict is a member of a syndicate operating in the United States.

According to him, the syndicate specialises in stealing.

The tweet read, "Aderibigbe, a member of a syndicate operating in the United States, specialises in stealing of United States citizens' data to obtain fraudulent tax returns from the Internal Revenue Service, IRS.

"The defendant, alongside other members of the syndicate, perpetrated the fraud through the help of one Curtis Betley serving a jail term in the U.S. to steal the identities of American nationals and use the same to file over 255 fraudulent tax fund returns with the IRS, making over $1.6million. 

"The EFCC, acting on the FBI report and after diligent investigation, arrested Aderibigbe."