MIAMI, FL – A dual United Kingdom–Nigerian national, Iheanyichukwu Jonathan Abraham, 44, has been sentenced to 90 months in prison for his role in a transnational inheritance fraud scheme targeting elderly victims in the United States.
According to court documents, Abraham and his co-conspirators sent personalized letters to elderly U.S. residents falsely claiming they were entitled to multimillion-dollar inheritances from deceased relatives in Portugal. Victims were instructed to send payments for fake delivery fees and taxes to claim their inheritance.
Abraham helped operate a complex network that laundered the fraud proceeds through former victims in the United States, who were manipulated into receiving and forwarding money to others involved in the scheme.
Abraham was extradited from the United Kingdom, along with two other co-defendants, Emmanuel Samuel and Jerry Chucks Ozor, who were sentenced in June and July to 82 and 87 months, respectively. Two additional co-defendants extradited from Spain have pleaded guilty and are awaiting sentencing.
The case was investigated by the Justice Department’s Consumer Protection Branch, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service (USPIS), and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), with assistance from Europol and law enforcement agencies in the United Kingdom, Spain, and Portugal.
The Justice Department encourages anyone age 60 or older who has been a victim of financial fraud to contact the National Elder Fraud Hotline at 1-833-372-8311.
