Omoyoma Christopher Okoro, a Nigerian man, was sentenced to 100 months in prison for defrauding U.S. attorneys through a sophisticated wire fraud scheme. He was ordered to pay over $22 million in restitution after his conviction on multiple charges related to the fraudulent attorney collection scheme.
A 50-year-old Nigerian man, Omoyoma Christopher Okoro, has been sentenced to 100 months in prison by the U.S. District Court for his involvement in a sophisticated fraud scheme targeting attorneys in the United States. The sentencing, delivered by Judge Jennifer P. Wilson on September 19, 2024, followed a jury trial that found Okoro guilty on multiple charges, including conspiracy to commit wire fraud, mail fraud, and bank fraud.
Okoro, who moved to the U.S. from Nigeria in 2013, was part of an international scheme that operated between 2006 and 2010. Attorneys were contacted by individuals posing as clients claiming to require legal assistance due to owed money from business transactions or settlements. Victims were duped into depositing counterfeit checks into their escrow accounts and wiring portions of the funds to foreign accounts, primarily in East Asia. Once the funds were sent, the fraudsters withdrew the money before the attorneys realized the checks were fake.
In addition to his prison sentence, Okoro has been ordered to pay $22,565,929.18 in restitution. The scheme is believed to have netted over $23 million in fraudulent proceeds and attempted to defraud attorneys of more than $80 million. Okoro is the latest in a series of prosecutions related to this extensive fraud operation, which has implicated several other individuals across Canada and Nigeria.
