US Court Jails Nigerian Man 97 Months for $6 Million Inheritance Fraud Targeting Elderly Americans

A United States federal court has sentenced a Nigerian national, Tochukwu Albert Nnebocha, to 97 months’ imprisonment for his role in a transnational inheritance fraud scheme that targeted elderly and vulnerable Americans, defrauding them of more than $6 million.
In a statement published Friday on the US Department of Justice (DOJ) website, the department said the 44-year-old Nigerian participated in a years-long conspiracy that exploited hundreds of victims across the United States.
According to court documents, Nnebocha and his co-conspirators operated the scheme for over seven years, sending hundreds of thousands of personalised letters to elderly Americans. The letters falsely claimed to originate from a Spanish bank and informed recipients that they were entitled to multimillion-dollar inheritances allegedly left by deceased relatives.
Victims were subsequently instructed to pay various fees—purportedly for delivery, taxes, and processing—before the fictitious inheritance could be released. The DOJ said the fraudsters ultimately swindled more than 400 victims out of over $6 million.
Nnebocha was arrested in Poland in April 2025 and extradited to the United States in September 2025. He pleaded guilty in November 2025 to conspiracy to commit mail fraud and wire fraud.
At sentencing, the court ordered Nnebocha to serve 97 months in prison, followed by three years of supervised release, and to pay restitution exceeding $6.8 million to the victims.
The DOJ noted that the case is the second prosecution linked to the international fraud network. Eight co-conspirators from the United Kingdom, Spain, Portugal, and Nigeria have previously been convicted and sentenced in connection with the scheme.
The investigation was conducted by the US Postal Inspection Service and Homeland Security Investigations, with support from the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Legal Attaché in Poland, INTERPOL, Polish authorities, the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida, and the DOJ’s Office of International Affairs.
Senior Trial Attorney Phil Toomajian and Trial Attorney Joshua D. Rothman of the DOJ’s Criminal Division Fraud Section are prosecuting the case.