https://www.themainewire.com/2024/06/money-launderer-in-5-6-million-nigerian-advance-fee-scheme-gets-3-years-in-prison/

An Indiana man has been sentenced to three years in prison for his role as a money launderer in a multimillion-dollar advance fee scheme orchestrated from Nigeria, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Texas announced Thursday.

Tochukwu Nwosisi, 52, of Indianapolis, Ind., was sentenced to 36 months in federal prison to be followed by two years of supervised release.

He was also ordered to pay just over $900,000 in restitution.

Nwosisi was convicted by a federal jury in March on charges of conspiracy to commit money laundering and concealment money laundering for his role in the scheme.

“Those who enable fraudsters by helping them move and hide money taken from victims are just as responsible for their crimes as the people who run the scam themselves,” said U.S. Attorney Alamdar Hamdani following the conviction. “Nwosisi took nearly $1 million from victims to enrich himself and his co-conspirators. He deserves to face the consequences for his crimes.”

In handing down the sentence, U.S. District Judge Alfred Bennett noted that Nwosisi was a knowing and willing participant in the international criminal scheme with impacts on victims worldwide, stating that “today is the day for accountability.”

According to the Department of Justice, Nwosisi participated in the criminal scheme from at least February 205 to January 2018.

The advance-fee scheme involved fraudulent offers of investment funding and inheritances made by Nwosisi’s Nigeria-based co-conspirators to victims around the world.

The ringleaders of the scheme based in Nigeria would induce victims to make large wire payments to bank accounts in the U.S. on the assurance that the purported “advance fees” were necessary before the bank would release their investment funds or inheritance.

Nwosisi’s role in the conspiracy, according to the Justice Department, was to launder the victim funds into his U.S.-based bank accounts and then to forward the proceeds to the ringleaders in Nigeria.