Jabin Godspower Okpako, Mail and Wire Fraud, Pennsylvania 2021

WILLIAMSPORT, Pennsylvania – A Nigerian man has been sentenced to 87 months’ imprisonment for laundering approximately $1.89 million in mail and wire fraud proceeds.

Jabin Godspower Okpako, 36, was sentenced on November 23, 2021 by U.S. District Court Chief Judge Matthew W. Brann for conspiring to launder the funds through numerous bank and wire transactions in multiple states and transferring the funds out of the United States to three separate bank accounts in Nigeria.

Okpako and his wife, codefendant Christine Bradley Okpako, 54, of Sayre, Pennsylvania, received the funds from a mail and wire fraud scheme that targeted multiple female victims throughout the United States, ranging in age from 55 to 85. The victims were befriended through online game, relationship, and dating websites, including Instagram, Facebook, Words with Friends, and What’s App.

The conspirators fraudulently induced the victims to send and transmit funds for various fictitious reasons and purposes, including to assist a worker in Alaska who fell from a tower, to purchase an apartment in Washington, D.C., to assist the United Nations, to repair machinery and equipment on an oil drilling rig, to pay for medicine, to recover a $6 million inheritance, and to make an investment in gold.

Okpako and his wife continued to transfer fraud proceeds to Nigeria even after numerous banks closed their accounts based on the suspicious and irregular nature of the transactions. They also received a warning letter from the FBI concerning their activities, but continued to conduct money laundering transfers.

Okpako was ordered to make restitution in the amount of $440,950 to the victims and forfeit proceeds of the criminal activity. His wife, Christin Bradley Okpako, pleaded guilty on March 31, 2021 to conspiracy to commit money laundering through mail and wire fraud and is awaiting sentencing.

The case was investigated by the FBI, with Assistant U.S. Attorney George J. Rocktashel prosecuting the case.

Related Federal Cases