FBI launches manhunt for Nigerian fraudsters who stole $60 million from top global carbon supplier
The FBI has launched a manhunt for suspected Nigerian fraudsters who allegedly swindled Orion, an energy company, of millions of dollars, specifically $60 million, according to Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings on August 10.
Although the SEC withheld the names of the fraudsters and their personal identifying information to avoid spooking them into hiding before their arrest, law enforcement agents told Peoples Gazette that the fraudsters were of Nigerian descent.
The suspects stole $60 million from Orion, a Luxembourg-based company that produces carbon black, a major material for making tyres, ink, batteries, plastics and more.
An SEC filing showed that the suspect targeted an Orion employee in the scheme and used him as bait to make fraudulent wire transfers from the company to other accounts under their control, a criminal tactic that many Nigerian fraudsters have adopted.
“Orion S.A. (the “Company”) determined that a company employee, who is not a named executive officer, was the target of a criminal scheme that resulted in multiple fraudulently induced outbound wire transfers to accounts controlled by unknown third parties,” SEC filing stated on August 10. “As a result of this incident, and if no further recoveries of transferred funds occur, the Company expects to record a one-time pre-tax charge of approximately $60 million for the unrecovered fraudulent wire transfers.”
In a similar scheme, Ramon Abbas, also known as Ray Hushpuppi to his millions of Instagram fans, and his partner Woodberry, whose real name is Olalekan Ponle, were jailed for coordinating multimillion-dollar scams involving business email compromise schemes by the U.S. government.
The two fraudsters are serving their respective sentences at the Fort Dix correctional facility for scamming individuals and companies in similar fraud schemes.
In October, The Gazette reported that the FBI contacted their Nigerian counterpart, EFCC, to track down two fugitives wanted for scamming the American healthcare system of $13 million.
Babatunde Shodiya and Yinka Jamiu targeted at least four Minnesota-based health service providers and tricked them into paying $13 million to a manipulated account rather than the intended beneficiaries.
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