A Nigerian national, Tochukwu Albert Nnebocha, has been sentenced to 97 months in a U.S. federal prison for his role in a transnational inheritance fraud scheme that targeted elderly and vulnerable Americans.
According to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), Nnebocha, 44, and his accomplices operated the scheme for more than seven years, sending hundreds of personalized letters to victims across the United States. The letters falsely claimed the recipients were entitled to multimillion-dollar inheritances from deceased relatives, with Nnebocha and his co-conspirators demanding advance payments for supposed delivery fees, taxes, and other charges.
The DOJ said over 400 victims were defrauded of more than $6 million. Nnebocha was arrested in Poland in April 2025, extradited to the U.S. in September 2025, and pleaded guilty in November 2025 to conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud.
In addition to the prison sentence, the court ordered Nnebocha to pay more than $6.8 million in restitution and imposed three years of supervised release. Authorities noted this case is the second indictment connected to the international fraud network, with eight co-conspirators from the United Kingdom, Spain, Portugal, and Nigeria already convicted.
Investigations were led by the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and Homeland Security Investigations, with support from the FBI Legal Attaché in Poland, INTERPOL, Polish authorities, and the DOJ’s Office of International Affairs.
