A tech entrepreneur, Kingsley Inegbedion, has been arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation for his alleged involvement in romance scams and business email compromise schemes that witnessed him and an accomplice, Efemena Igbe, who is still at large, posing as legitimate business owners to defraud American citizens between April 2020 and May 2023.
The FBI said the duo used sham corporate entities to receive fraudulent funds distributed into other accounts within and outside the US to conceal the fraud.
The FBI, in a statement, said it had been seeking restitution of funds and forfeiture of property obtained through the fraud scheme allegedly perpetrated by Inegbedion and Igbe, who were said to have used the stolen funds to purchase cashier’s cheques and withdraw cash from various bank accounts.
“Upon conviction of the offences alleged in counts one through 16 of this indictment, the defendants, Efemena Igbe and Kingsley Inegbedion, shall forfeit to the United States of America, pursuant to Title 18, United States Code, Section 982(a)(1), any property, real or personal, involved in such offence, and any property traceable to such property including, but not limited to, a money judgment, that is, a sum of money in United States currency representing the amount of property involved in the offence,” said the FBI statement.
Inegbedion was taken into custody after the grand jury returned the indictment.
