Okezie Bonaventure Ogbata, Transnational Inheritance Fraud, Florida 2024

MIAMI – Okezie Bonaventure Ogbata, 36, a Nigerian national, has pleaded guilty to operating a transnational inheritance fraud scheme that defrauded elderly and vulnerable consumers across the United States, netting over $6 million.

According to court documents, Ogbata was a member of a group of fraudsters that sent personalized letters to elderly victims in the United States over the course of several years, falsely claiming that the sender was a representative of a bank in Spain and that the recipient was entitled to receive a multimillion-dollar inheritance left for the recipient by a family member who had died overseas years before.

Ogbata and his co-conspirators told a series of lies to victims, including that, before they could receive their purported inheritance, they were required to send money for delivery fees, taxes and other payments to avoid questioning from government authorities.

Ogbata and his co-conspirators collected money victims sent in response to the fraudulent letters through a complex web of U.S.-based former victims, whom the defendants convinced to receive money and forward to the defendants or persons associated with them.

Victims who sent money never received any purported inheritance funds. In pleading guilty, Ogbata admitted to defrauding over $6 million from more than 400 victims, many of whom were elderly or otherwise vulnerable.

“The long arm of the American justice system has no limits when it comes to reaching fraudsters who prey on our nation’s most vulnerable populations, to include the elderly,” said U.S. Attorney Markenzy Lapointe for the Southern District of Florida.

Ogbata is scheduled to be sentenced by U.S. District Judge Roy K. Altman on April 14 and faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison.

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