United States Attorney's Office
United States Attorney Susan Lehr announced that Afeez Akinloye, age 44, a Nigerian citizen who was living in South Africa at the time of his arrest and extradition to the United States in May 2023, was sentenced on September 19, 2024, in federal court in Omaha, Nebraska conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Chief United States District Judge Robert F. Rossiter, Jr. sentenced Akinloye to a total of 30 months’ imprisonment. There is no parole in the federal system. After Akinloye’s release from prison, he will begin a 3-year term of supervised release and is subject to removal from the United States.
In the Fall of 2016, continuing to the summer of 2017, Akinloye participated in a scheme to defraud U.S. based businesses involved in real estate transactions. As a part of the scheme, Akinloye and other individuals gained access to email accounts and account information related to real estate transactions and then posed as the seller in the real estate transaction, requesting wire transfers be sent to locations and accounts that the fraudsters had access to. The accounts Akinloye and the other fraudsters had access to were as a result of other co-conspirators victimizing unwitting mules through romance scams. There were two victims in the District of Nebraska who lost $52,000 because of the wire fraud conspiracy. There was a total of eleven victims with losses of $1,850,000, and attempted losses of $4,600,000. Akinloye and the co-conspirators committed the offense from outside the United States, mostly from South Africa.
Akinloye’s co-defendants, Saliu Jimoh Akinloye, Ebenezer Gbenga Omoshagba, and Sheriff Opeyemi Olalere, remain at large.
This case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.