Nine Defendants Arrested In New York, Florida, And Texas For Multimillion-Dollar Wire Fraud Scheme

Geoffrey S. Berman, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and James C. Spero, Special Agent in Charge of the Tampa, Florida, Field Office of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations (“HSI”), announced today that nine defendants, OLUWASEUN ADELEKAN, a/k/a “Sean Adelekan,” OLALEKAN DARAMOLA, SOLOMON ABUREKHANLEN, GBENGA OYENEYIN, ABIOLA OLAJUMOKE, TEMITOPE OMOTAYO, BRYAN EADIE, ALBERT LUCAS, and ADEMOLA ADEBOGUN, were arrested for defrauding businesses and individuals of more than $3.5 million through business email compromises, a Russian oil scam, and a romance scam. 

U.S. Attorney Geoffrey S. Berman said:  “As alleged, these defendants deployed three different email schemes to defraud their victims.  The common denominator in all three schemes was the defendants’ alleged fleecing of their victims through fictitious online identities.  The schemes allegedly earned the defendants $3.5 million – and also arrests on federal felony charges.”

HSI Special Agent-in-Charge James C. Spero said:  “A transnational criminal organization allegedly conducting illicit domestic and international wire fraud has been dismantled thanks to the hard work of HSI Tampa and Special Agents from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York.  This case illustrates the unique investigative authority and international reach of HSI.”

As alleged in the Indictment[1] unsealed today from at least in or about July 2016, up to and including the present, the defendants participated in a scheme to defraud businesses and individuals through several categories of false and misleading representations, including but not limited to:

• Sending victims email messages that appeared to be, but were not, from legitimate business counterparties that included instructions to the victims to wire payment to those seemingly legitimate business counterparties into bank accounts that were actually under the control of, and/or maintained by, ADELEKAN, DARAMOLA, ABUREKHANLEN, OYENEYIN, OLAJUMOKE, OMOTAYO, EADIE, LUCAS, and ADEBOGUN (the “Business Email Compromise Scam”);
• Sending email messages and text messages to at least one victim offering an opportunity to invest in oil stored in Russian oil tank farms conditioned on that victim wiring upfront payments into bank accounts purportedly affiliated with the purported oil investment but actually opened by and under the control of ABUREKHANLEN, OLAJUMOKE, and OYENEYIN (the “Russian Oil Scam”); and
• Sending email messages and text messages to at least one victim from an individual (or individuals) purporting to be a female with romantic intentions toward the victim requesting, further to establishing a romantic relationship, the wiring of payment into a bank account under the control of OMOTAYO (the “Romance Scam”). 

In reliance on the foregoing false and misleading representations, the victims of the Business Email Scam, Russian Oil Scam, and Romance Scam wired or otherwise transferred in excess of $3.5 million into bank accounts opened in the names of shell companies and under the control of and/or maintained by the defendants. 

ABUREKHANLEN was arrested yesterday, April 24, 2019, in the Bronx, New York, and will be presented before U.S. Magistrate Judge Henry B. Pitman today.  ADELEKAN, OMOTAYO, LUCAS, EADIE, and ADEBOGUN were arrested earlier this morning in New York, New York, and will also be presented today before Judge Pitman.  OLAJUMOKE and OYENEYIN were arrested earlier this morning in Florida and will be presented in the Southern District of Florida later today.  DARAMOLA was arrested earlier this morning in Texas and will be presented in the Western District of Texas later today.

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The defendants are each charged in the Indictment with one count of conspiring to commit wire fraud.  Each defendant faces a maximum potential sentence of 20 years in prison.  A chart containing names, age, place of residence, and nationality of the defendants is set forth below.

The maximum potential sentences in this case are prescribed by Congress and are provided here for informational purposes only, as any sentencing of the defendants will be determined by the judge.

Mr. Berman praised the outstanding investigative work of the Special Agents from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York and HSI.

This case is being handled by the Office’s General Crimes Unit.  Assistant United States Attorney Daniel H. Wolf is in charge of the prosecution.

The charges contained in the Indictment are merely accusations, and the defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.