A Dallas, Texas resident and Nigerian national was sentenced in federal court last week for defrauding numerous southern Iowa businesses.
28-year-old Emmanuel Ogbeide received an 87-month federal prison sentence.
According to court documents, Ogbeide was a member of a fraudulent business email compromise (BEC) scheme with his father, Kingsley Ogbeide, and his girlfriend, Vemuna Katjaimo, in the Southern District of Iowa. BEC scams are initiated by tricking employees of legitimate businesses to change their bank information via email. Large sums of money are subsequently wired to illegitimate bank accounts controlled by fraudsters.
Ogbeide knowingly falsified bank accounts with co-defendants, Kingsley Ogbeide and Vemuna Katjaimo, and directly defrauded various businesses in the Southern District of Iowa and elsewhere. Following the fraudulent money wires from the businesses, Ogbeide actively participated in moving large sums of money between fraudulent accounts to avoid detection.
Ogbeide will serve a three-year supervised release at the end of his sentence. He’s also been ordered to pay $1,587,127.87 in restitution to the businesses that were victimized.
