A United States court has found Olusegun Adejorin, a 32-year-old Nigerian national, guilty of wire fraud, aggravated identity theft, and unauthorised access to a protected computer.
Adejorin, who was extradited from Ghana to stand trial, was convicted for orchestrating a fraudulent scheme that targeted two charitable organisations in the United States between June and August 2020.
According to prosecutors, Adejorin executed a plan to defraud a Maryland-based charitable organisation that provides investment services to other organisations.
In a statement, the US attorney-general’s office for the District of Maryland said the scheme also involved defrauding a New York-based charitable organisation by unlawfully accessing employee email accounts and impersonating staff members to initiate fraudulent financial transactions.
THE FRAUD SCHEME
Prosecutors explained that Adejorin created spoofed domain names and used them to pose as employees of the New York-based charity, submitting requests for withdrawals of the organisation’s funds held by the Maryland-based charity.
Adejorin also unlawfully accessed the Maryland charity’s email accounts, which he used to send messages falsely validating the fraudulent withdrawal requests purportedly made on behalf of the New York charity.
“He ultimately caused more than $7.5 million of Victim 2’s (New York-based charity) funds to be sent, pursuant to the fraudulent withdrawal requests, from Victim 1 (Maryland-based charity) to bank accounts that were not Victim 2’s (New York-based charity) bank accounts,” the statement said.
“Adejorin faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison for each of the five counts of wire fraud, a maximum of five years for unauthorised access to a protected computer, and a mandatory two years, consecutive to any other sentence imposed, for aggravated identity theft.”
The attorney’s office noted that actual sentences in federal cases are often lower than the statutory maximums, as sentencing is determined by a federal district judge after weighing the US sentencing guidelines and other legal considerations.
Kelly Hayes, US attorney for the District of Maryland, praised the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) for its role in investigating the case.
Theodore Chuang, a US district judge, is scheduled to pronounce Adejorin’s sentence on April 10, 2026.