By Sesi Noah A U.S. court has sentenced a Nigerian man, Ehis Lawrence Akhimie, to just over eight years in prison for his role in a massive...
By Sesi Noah
A U.S. court has sentenced a Nigerian man, Ehis Lawrence Akhimie, to just over eight years in prison for his role in a massive inheritance scam that defrauded more than 400 people—many of them elderly—out of over $6 million.
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida, the 41-year-old was handed a 97-month prison term on September 11 after pleading guilty to conspiracy charges.
Court documents revealed that Akhimie and his partners in crime sent personalized letters to people in the U.S., pretending to be bank officials in Spain. The letters falsely claimed that the recipients were beneficiaries of multimillion-dollar inheritances from relatives who had supposedly died abroad.
According to Vanguard News victims were then tricked into paying various fees—labeled as delivery charges, taxes, or processing costs—before they could “access” the money. They were warned that the payments were needed to avoid government scrutiny. In reality, the funds were funneled through a complex network of intermediaries, including some U.S.-based former victims who had themselves been manipulated into acting as conduits.
“Akhimie and his co-conspirators collected the money through this web of intermediaries, but the victims never received any inheritance,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office said. “In total, he admitted to defrauding over $6 million from more than 400 victims, many of whom were elderly or otherwise vulnerable.”
U.S. Attorney Jason Quiñones described the scam as a “betrayal of trust.”
Assistant Attorney General Brett Shumate also praised the international cooperation that helped crack the case, noting contributions from the U.K.’s National Crime Agency, Spain, Portugal, and Europol. He stressed that the U.S. Justice Department will continue to pursue criminals who target American consumers, regardless of where they operate from.
The investigation was led by the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI). Bladismir Rojo, Acting Inspector in Charge, said their focus remains on protecting Americans from international fraudsters. HSI’s Acting Special Agent in Charge, Ray Rede, condemned the exploitation of elderly victims, calling it “a betrayal of humanity.”
Akhimie is the eighth person sentenced in connection with the scheme. In April, another Nigerian, Okezie Bonaventure Ogbata, who was extradited from Portugal, also received a 97-month sentence. Judge Roy Altman at the time described the fraud as “an incredibly serious crime” that required tough punishment to safeguard society’s most vulnerable.
Other members of the syndicate had earlier been sentenced by Judge Kathleen Williams in related proceedings.
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