A United States court has convicted Olusegun Adejorin, a 32-year-old Nigerian national, of wire fraud, aggravated identity theft, and unauthorised access to a protected computer.
Adejorin, who was extradited from Ghana to face trial, was found guilty of carrying out a fraud scheme that targeted two charitable organisations in the United States between June and August 2020.
Prosecutors told the court that Adejorin orchestrated a scheme to defraud a charitable organisation in Maryland that provided investment services to other organisations.
According to a statement from the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Maryland, Adejorin also defrauded a charitable organisation based in New York by unlawfully accessing employee email accounts and impersonating staff members to induce fraudulent financial transactions.
Prosecutors said Adejorin registered spoofed domain names and used them to impersonate employees of the New York-based charity, sending requests for withdrawals of the organisation’s funds held by the Maryland-based charity.
They added that Adejorin fraudulently gained access to the Maryland charity’s email accounts, which he used to send emails falsely confirming the fraudulent withdrawal requests made in the name of the New York charity.
“He ultimately caused more than $7.5 million of Victim 2’s (New York-based charity) funds to be sent, pursuant to the fraudulent withdrawal requests, from Victim 1 (Maryland-based charity) to bank accounts that were not Victim 2’s (New York-based charity) bank accounts,” the statement said.
The statement further noted that “Adejorin faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison for each of the five counts of wire fraud, a maximum of five years for unauthorised access to a protected computer, and a mandatory two years, consecutive to any other sentence imposed, for aggravated identity theft.”
The attorney’s office said actual sentences for federal crimes are often less than the maximum penalties, explaining that a federal district judge will determine the sentence after considering the United States Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.
Kelly Hayes, the United States Attorney for the District of Maryland, commended the Federal Bureau of Investigation for its role in investigating the case.
The sentencing will be delivered by United States District Judge Theodore Chuang on April 10, 2026.
