The U.S. Bureau of Prisons has released Nigerian serial fraudster and businessman, Invictus Obi Okeke, after spending six years in jail for scamming America-based businesses of $11 million between 2015 and 2019.
Mr Okeke, arrested in 2019, was no longer in custody as of Wednesday with arrangements for his deportation to Nigeria underway as stipulated in his guilty plea agreement.
FBI agents arrested Mr Okeke in August 2019 at the Dulles International Airport in Virginia where he had booked a flight to return to Nigeria.
He was tried and sentenced to 10 years imprisonment in February 2021 but released on Wednesday, seemingly benefitting from the first-step prison reform policy that President Donald Trump signed into law in his first term.
The reform shortened sentences for offenders based on adherence to certain standing behavioural rules. The fraudster is believed to have qualified under the policy.
He was charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit computer fraud. Mr Okeke stole the login credentials of Unatrac Holding Limited, a company that exports Caterpillar industrial machinery, and intercepted emails to divert payments. He dubiously pocketed approximately $11 million.
Investigations by the FBI revealed that Mr Okeke masterminded a computer hacking scheme, compromising emails to rob unsuspecting victims of millions of dollars.
“Through subterfuge and impersonation, Obinwanne Okeke engaged in a multi-year global business email and computer hacking scheme that caused a staggering $11 million in losses to his victims,” a statement by Raj Parekh, Acting U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, stated in 2021.
The Abuja Division of the Federal High Court issued an order for the temporary forfeiture of over N280 million in Mr Okeke’s Nigerian bank accounts.
Mr Okeke, 38, before his criminal activities came to light, was celebrated in the Forbes 30-under-30 section in 2016 as one of Africa’s most promising entrepreneurs.
Described as the founder of Invictus Group with a humble background, Forbes said Mr Okeke named his company “after one of Nelson Mandela’s favorite poems, by William Ernest Henley, about the undefeated and unconquerable soul of a hard worker, from an impoverished background, who will not give up.”
Forbes praised Mr Okeke for his investment in construction, agriculture, oil and gas, telecoms and real estate.