The United States Department of Justice has charged three Nigerians and 13 other foreign nationals in separate cases involving alleged illegal voting, false claims of US citizenship and other election-related offences.
The DOJ announced the charges on Friday, September 18, 2026, saying the 16 cases were filed across several federal districts in the United States.
The cases involve allegations of voting while ineligible, falsely claiming US citizenship to register or vote, naturalisation fraud, passport fraud and other offences uncovered during investigations.
Three Nigerians charged
The Nigerians identified by the DOJ are Gladys Adaeze Okafor, 56, Helen Sayen Adams, 67, and Joshua Nmelichukwu Akpom, 27.
Okafor, a Nigerian citizen and lawful permanent resident in Massachusetts, was arrested and charged with allegedly voting in the 2022 federal midterm election and the 2024 presidential primary.
According to the DOJ, Okafor became a lawful permanent resident in December 2022 but was not a US citizen and had not applied for citizenship.
Prosecutors allege that she registered to vote in July 2022 and signed a certification stating that she was a US citizen. She allegedly voted in the 2022 midterm election and later registered again and voted in the 2024 presidential primary.
Adams, also a Nigerian citizen and lawful permanent resident, faces charges in the Northern District of Texas for allegedly voting in a federal election and falsely claiming US citizenship to register to vote.
The DOJ said Adams became a lawful permanent resident in May 2024. Prosecutors allege that she falsely claimed to be a US citizen on a Texas voter registration application in June 2024 and subsequently voted in the November 2024 general election in Tarrant County.
Akpom, 27, a Nigerian citizen and lawful permanent resident since 2016, faces a different charge involving alleged false statements during his naturalisation process.
According to prosecutors, Akpom allegedly denied on a 2026 naturalisation application that he had previously claimed US citizenship, registered to vote or voted, despite allegedly registering in 2017 and voting in the 2018 general election.
The DOJ said the statute of limitations prevented prosecutors from pursuing the earlier voting conduct directly, leading them to charge him over the alleged false statements in his naturalisation application.
13 other foreign nationals charged
The other defendants include nationals of Mexico, India, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Antigua and Barbuda, Venezuela, Colombia and Russia.
Among the cases, the DOJ said one defendant in Idaho faces multiple charges involving alleged false claims of citizenship, wire fraud, theft of government funds, passport fraud and an unlawful firearm purchase.
The department also announced cases involving alleged illegal voting in Georgia, Texas, New Jersey, Wisconsin and Michigan.
In one case, the DOJ said a Colombian national allegedly falsely claimed to be a US citizen when registering to vote in the 2022 federal election. Another case involves a Russian national accused of illegally voting in the 2024 general election.
The Justice Department said the complaints, indictments and other charging documents contain allegations and that all the defendants are presumed innocent unless proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
The latest cases form part of a wider series of federal investigations into alleged voting and registration offences involving non-citizens across the United States.