Nigerian man jailed for eight years in US over $7.5m charity fraud
A 32-year-old Nigerian national, Olusegun Adejorin, has been sentenced to eight years in a US federal prison for his role in a business email compromise scheme that diverted more than $7.5 million from two charitable organisations.
US District Judge Theodore Chuang sentenced Adejorin to 96 months in prison, followed by three years of supervised release. He was convicted of wire fraud, aggravated identity theft and unauthorised access to a protected computer.
According to evidence presented at trial, Adejorin carried out the scheme between June and August 2020 by gaining unauthorised access to employees’ email accounts and impersonating them to authorise fraudulent financial transactions.
Prosecutors said he created spoofed domain names that allowed him to impersonate employees of a New York-based charity and request withdrawals from a Maryland organisation that provided investment services to other organisations.
He also allegedly accessed email accounts belonging to employees of the Maryland organisation and used them to falsely confirm the withdrawal requests.
The scheme ultimately resulted in more than $7.5 million being transferred from the Maryland organisation to bank accounts that were not associated with the intended recipient.
Adejorin was extradited from Ghana to the United States in August 2024 after authorities in Ghana worked with US investigators. A federal jury subsequently found him guilty on all charges following a six-day trial in December 2025.
The US authorities credited the FBI Baltimore Field Office, Ghanaian law-enforcement agencies and the US Justice Department’s Office of International Affairs for their roles in investigating the case and securing his extradition.
The case highlights the growing international reach of business email compromise schemes, in which criminals exploit compromised accounts, impersonation and fraudulent instructions to divert large sums of money without physically accessing victims’ premises.
