A United States court has sentenced Tochukwu Albert Nnebocha to eight years’ imprisonment for his role in a multimillion-dollar inheritance fraud that targeted hundreds of Americans.
In a statement released on Friday, the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) said Nnebocha was convicted for participating in a long-running inheritance fraud scheme that preyed on elderly and vulnerable individuals across the United States.
Nnebocha, 44, was arrested in Poland and extradited to the United States in September 2025 to face trial. Prosecutors said he defrauded more than 400 victims of over $6 million.
Under Friday’s judgment, Nnebocha will serve 97 months in prison, followed by three years of supervised release. The court also ordered him to pay more than $6.8 million in restitution to his victims.
According to court documents cited by the DoJ, Nnebocha and his co-conspirators operated a transnational fraud network for over seven years. The group sent hundreds of thousands of personalised letters to elderly Americans, falsely claiming to represent a Spanish bank and informing recipients that they were entitled to multimillion-dollar inheritances from deceased relatives.
Victims were subsequently told they had to pay various fees—purportedly for delivery, taxes, and processing—before the supposed inheritance could be released. Authorities said these claims were entirely fictitious.
“The defendant and his co-conspirators exploited vulnerable people in the United States through a sophisticated inheritance fraud scheme,” the DoJ said, noting that the operation resulted in losses exceeding $6 million.
The case comes amid growing international scrutiny of cross-border fraud schemes. It also follows investigative reports by the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) highlighting similar high-profile fraud cases, including that of Nigerian socialite and internet fraudster Nzube Henry Ikeji, who allegedly posed as a Dubai royal to defraud a Romanian woman of millions of dollars.
Nnebocha’s sentencing adds to a list of recent cases involving Nigerians jailed abroad for financial crimes, underscoring continued global efforts to clamp down on transnational fraud networks.
