Nigerian man gets eight years jail for $6m inheritance scam in US

A Nigerian national, Tochukwu Albert Nnebocha, has been sentenced by a United States court to 97 months’ imprisonment for participating in a transnational inheritance fraud scheme that targeted elderly and vulnerable Americans. 

According to a statement published on the US Department of Justice website on Friday, Feb. 6, “a Nigerian National was sentenced today to more than eight years in prison for participating in a years-long conspiracy to defraud elderly and vulnerable Americans through an inheritance fraud scheme.” 

The DOJ stated that Nnebocha, who is 44 years old, and his co-conspirators “operated a lucrative transnational inheritance fraud scheme that exploited vulnerable people in the United States” over a period exceeding seven years. 

The statement read, “According to court documents, Tochukwu Albert Nnebocha, 44, of Nigeria, and his co-conspirators operated a lucrative transnational inheritance fraud scheme that exploited vulnerable people in the United States. 

“Over the course of more than seven years, Nnebocha and his co-conspirators sent hundreds of thousands of personalized letters to elderly individuals in the United States, falsely claiming that the sender was a representative of a bank in Spain and that the recipient was entitled to receive a multimillion-dollar inheritance left by a deceased family member.” 

According to the US DOJ, victims were subsequently instructed to pay various fees before accessing the fictitious inheritance. 

“The conspirators then told the victims that, before they could receive their purported inheritance, they were required to send money for purported delivery fees, taxes, and payments regarding the inheritance. In total, the defendant and his co-conspirators defrauded over 400 U.S. victims of more than $6 million,” the statement read. 

The DOJ added that “in total, the defendant and his co-conspirators defrauded over 400 U.S. victims of more than $6 million.” 

The statement disclosed that Nnebocha was arrested in Poland in April 2025 and extradited to the United States in September 2025. 

He later pleaded guilty in November 2025 to conspiracy to commit mail fraud and wire fraud. 

At sentencing, the court ordered 97 months’ imprisonment, three years of supervised release and restitution exceeding $6.8m to victims. 

The department noted that “this is the second indicted case related to this international fraud scheme,” adding that eight co-conspirators from the United Kingdom, Spain, Portugal and Nigeria had previously been convicted and sentenced. 

The case was investigated by the US Postal Inspection Service and Homeland Security Investigations, with assistance from the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Legal Attache in Poland, INTERPOL, Polish authorities, the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida, and the DOJ’s Office of International Affairs. 

Senior Trial Attorney Phil Toomajian and Trial Attorney Joshua D. Rothman of the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section are prosecuting the case, according to the statement.