A 32-year-old Nigerian national, Olusegun Adejorin, has been sentenced to eight years in a United States federal prison for his role in a business email compromise scheme that defrauded two charitable organisations of more than $7.5 million.
The U.S. Department of Justice disclosed this in a statement issued on Friday, August 28, 2026.
U.S. District Judge Theodore Chuang sentenced Adejorin to 96 months in prison, followed by three years of supervised release, after he was convicted of wire fraud, aggravated identity theft and unauthorised access to a protected computer to obtain information.
Adejorin was extradited from Ghana to the United States by the FBI in August 2024 to face trial. In December 2025, a federal jury convicted him on all charges following a six-day trial.
According to evidence presented in court, Adejorin carried out the fraud between June and August 2020, targeting two charitable organisations—one based in Maryland and another in New York.
Investigators said Adejorin gained unauthorised access to employees’ email accounts and impersonated staff members to initiate fraudulent financial transactions.
As part of the scheme, he allegedly registered spoofed domain names to impersonate employees of the New York-based charity and used them to request the withdrawal of funds held by the Maryland organisation.
He also gained fraudulent access to email accounts belonging to the Maryland charity and used them to send messages falsely confirming the withdrawal requests made in the name of the New York organisation.
The scheme ultimately resulted in more than $7.5 million belonging to the New York charity being transferred from the Maryland organisation to bank accounts controlled by or associated with the fraud.
U.S. Attorney for the District of Maryland Kelly O. Hayes announced the sentencing alongside Jimmy Paul, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI Baltimore Field Office.
Hayes commended the FBI Baltimore Field Office and its Legal Attaché in Accra, Ghana, as well as Ghanaian authorities, including the Office of the Attorney General and Ministry of Justice, Economic and Organised Crime Office, Ghana Immigration Service, Ghana Police Service–INTERPOL and National Intelligence Bureau, for their assistance in the investigation.
The Justice Department’s Office of International Affairs worked with Ghana’s International Cooperation Unit of the Office of the Attorney-General to secure Adejorin’s extradition to the United States.
Assistant U.S. Attorneys Joshua Rosenthal and Darren Gardner prosecuted the case.
