American Court Sentence 3 Nigerian Scammers To 235 Years In Jail

Three Nigerian scammers, who befriended many of their victims on dating sites, have been slammed huge prison sentences by a Mississippi court after making tens of millions of dollars from their schemes.

The suspects, 30 year old Oladimeji Seun Ayelotan, was sentenced to 95 years in prison; 31 year old Rasaq Aderoju Raheem, was given 115 years and 45 year old Femi Alexander Mewase, got 25 years behind bars..

A court in the Southern District of Mississippi had in February found them all guilty of crimes including mail fraud, wire fraud, identity theft, credit card fraud and theft of government property. Ayelotan and Raheem were also found guilty of conspiracies to commit bank fraud and money laundering.

Dating back to at least 2001, the scammers, who were among the six extradited from South Africa by US Department of Justice in 2015 to face charges of running a series of scams against gullible Americans over the past 16 years, were involved in multiple internet fraud schemes, resulting in losses in the tens of millions, according to the Department of Justice.

It claimed that they would befriend women on dating sites, establish a romantic relationship and then either get them to send money or have them participate in fraud schemes, usually without the victim’s knowledge.