Adelekan, 8 Others Busted in $3.5M Email Scam Empire

Eight million dollars in lies. Three scams. One criminal network. Oluwaseun Adelekan, a/k/a “Sean Adelekan,” and eight others were hauled in front of federal judges Tuesday after a sprawling $3.5 million wire fraud operation unraveled across New York, Florida, and Texas. Prosecutors say the crew weaponized email and fake identities to bleed businesses and individuals dry—using business email compromises, a phantom Russian oil investment, and cold-blooded romance scams to siphon cash into shell accounts they controlled.

Geoffrey S. Berman, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, didn’t mince words: “As alleged, these defendants deployed three different email schemes to defraud their victims. The common denominator in all three schemes was the defendants’ alleged fleecing of their victims through fictitious online identities.” The take? Over $3.5 million. The price? Federal felony charges with a maximum 20-year prison sentence hanging over each defendant’s head.

The Business Email Compromise Scam was industrial-grade deception—phishing emails crafted to look like legitimate invoices from trusted vendors, instructing companies to wire payments into bank accounts that were anything but legitimate. Instead, those wires flowed into accounts tied to Adelekan, Olalekan Daramola, Solomon Aburekhanlen, Gbenga Oyeneyin, Abiola Olajumoke, Temitope Omotayo, Bryan Eadie, Albert Lucas, and Ademola Adebogun. These weren’t sloppy cons. They were precise, repeated attacks designed to mimic real corporate transactions.

Then came the Russian Oil Scam—another layer of digital grift. Victims were lured with promises of high-return investments in oil stored at tank farms in Russia. All they needed to do? Wire upfront payments. Those funds went straight into accounts controlled by Aburekhanlen, Olajumoke, and Oyeneyin. No oil. No returns. Just vanished money and false promises. And when romance was the weapon, Omotayo allegedly posed as a woman seeking love, building emotional ties before demanding cash transfers under false pretenses.

Arrests cracked down simultaneously across state lines. Aburekhanlen was grabbed in the Bronx on April 24, 2019, and appeared before U.S. Magistrate Judge Henry B. Pitman. Adelekan, Omotayo, Lucas, Eadie, and Adebogun were rounded up in New York City and brought before the same judge. Olajumoke and Oyeneyin were collared in Florida, headed for court in the Southern District there. Daramola was arrested in Texas, facing proceedings in the Western District. This wasn’t a local hustle—it was a transnational fraud machine.

Each defendant is charged with one count of conspiring to commit wire fraud. No plea agreements. No leniency—not from James C. Spero, Special Agent in Charge of HSI Tampa, who declared the takedown a victory of “unique investigative authority and international reach.” The indictment is unsealed. The evidence is mounting. And the message is clear: fake emails won’t save you when federal agents come knocking.