Internet Fraud: U.S. Court Denies Adesuwa Ogiozee’s Plea to Remove Electronic Monitoring Ahead of Trial
The United States District Court for the District of New Mexico has denied popular Instagram auto dealer Adesuwa Ogiozee’s request to remove electronic monitoring devices as a bond condition in her internet fraud case, documents showed.
Judge Martha Vazquez rejected Ms Ogiozee’s request on December 13, 2022, for failing to comply with the court’s order to provide her financial and employment information while on home detention for her involvement in the multimillion-dollar fraud, including a romance scam of about $560,000, with four other co-conspirators.
After her arrest on September 16, 2021, and her first appearance in the Eastern District of Missouri on the following day, she was released on a $25,000 bond and placed on home detention, with the privilege of spending three hours per weekday outside of her residence in Missouri.
While on home detention, the self-proclaimed No1 car broker in Africa was to avail her pretrial officer of information on her whereabouts and lawful employment, but documents said she failed to comply with the court’s orders.
“Defendant was to inform her pretrial services officer of her whereabouts, and she remained on the location monitoring program. The defendant was also required to provide her pretrial services officer with ongoing proof of lawful employment on a weekly basis and any other financial documentation requested by pretrial services. All other imposed conditions of release were also to remain in place.
“Defendant has been on home detention for the last eight (8) months, but has not complied with this court’s order that she provide proof of lawful employment and other financial documentation requested by her pretrial services officer,” Ms Vazquez said, according to documents in the case.
The judge subsequently stated that the court would consider Ms Ogiozee’s renewed motion upon compliance with the court order and fixed February 5, 2024, as her trial date.
When contacted for comments on the federal judge’s decision on her failure to provide the required documents, Ms Ogiozee claimed she was never required to tender such.
U.S. federal agents had arrested Ms Ogiozee, an accounting graduate from the Delta State University Abraka, and her other co-conspirators, Kayode Adeniyi, Gbemileke Bello, Abel Adeyi Daramola, and a 37-year-old Nigerian based in Atlanta, Olutayo Sunday Ogunlaja, for charges bordering on conspiracy to commit wire fraud and wire fraud, after bilking $560,000 from a female victim resident of Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Initially, federal agents alleged that she received $12,000 from the romance scam, with which she procured a Mercedes Benz for herself. However, following further investigation, it was soon discovered that Ms Ogiozee committed more “extensive” financial crimes and was the leader of a syndicate fleecing people on the Internet.
Federal authorities alleged that the auto dealer, who was first indicted by a grand jury on December 2, 2020, moved more than $3 million in suspicious transactions through her American bank accounts and falsified form 1040 tax claims to the Internal Revenue Service between 2015 and 2019.
However, Ms Ogiozee, despite court documents, repeatedly denied her involvement in the fraud case, claiming she had no case to answer because someone bought a car from her with the proceeds of a scam. She, however, failed to explain why millions of dollars in fraudulent transactions were traced to her bank accounts, including several that were closed by American banks for fraud.
At least two of her lawyers have dropped her case after discovering that she had lied to them repeatedly about her involvement in the fraud and failed to cooperate, claiming FBI and prosecutors charged her because of her race as a black woman.
Meanwhile, Mr Adeniyi, one of Ms Ogiozee’s co-conspirators in the Internet crime syndicate, was sentenced to three and half years imprisonment after pleading guilty to FBI charges before Judge Kea W. Riggs on December 12, 2021.
Ms Ogiozee is the latest Nigerian to be charged for involvement in multimillion-dollar fraud in the U.S. while pretending to be a legitimate entrepreneur. Obinwanne ‘Invictus’ Okeke and Ramon ‘Hushpuppi’ Abbas were amongst those recently convicted of vast Internet fraud and handed long prison sentences after spending years parading themselves as business professionals on the Internet and in social circles.
