A United States court has sentenced Lagos-based internet fraudster, Daniel Chima Inweregbu, to a prison term over his involvement in wire fraud and romance scam schemes.
According to a statement released by the U.S. Department of Justice on Friday, the 40-year-old was handed 33 months’ imprisonment by United States District Judge Nanette Jolivette Brown.
He was also ordered to undergo three years of supervised release, pay a $100 special assessment fee, and refund $166,400 as restitution.
Inweregbu, who was extradited from the United Kingdom to stand trial, received the sentence after pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit mail fraud, wire fraud, using an assumed name to carry out a mail fraud scheme, and conspiracy to commit money laundering.
The Department of Justice said Mr Inweregbu targetted four American women, luring them into supposed romantic relationships before swindling them, resulting in “actual and intended losses to the four identified victims of over $405,000″.
The statement noted that from July 1, 2017, to December 16, 2018, he and his partners executed a romance scam using false identities to deceive multiple women, including “Victim 1, a female born in 1965, Victim 2, a female born in March 1974, Victim 3, a female born in 1970, and Victim 4, a female born in 1976”.
Masquerading as ‘Larry Pham’, described as a Canadian-born Vietnamese man, he used social media, messaging platforms and email to reach victims, build trust, and exploit their desire for companionship.
After establishing the relationships, Mr Inweregbu, posing as Larry Pham, instructed the victims to send money under various fabricated claims to domestic bank accounts.
He and his co-conspirators then laundered the funds through financial transactions designed to hide the “nature, location, source, ownership, and control” of the proceeds by routing the money through intermediaries.
