10 most wanted people hiding from Nigeria’s security agencies

Last week, 77 Nigerians were arrested by the United States Federal Bureau of Intelligence for alleged involvement in business email compromise, romance scam and defrauding American citizens millions of dollars which were allegedly channelled through Nigerian banks.

The development has triggered the arrest of some local collaborators while the FBI and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission have launched a manhunt for other accomplices. This development has swelled the list of Nigerians on the wanted list of security agencies. We bring to you 10 most wanted Nigerians including their foreign accomplices.

Valentine Iro

Wanted by the FBI for cyber crimes

The 31-year-old was named along with Chukwudi Igbokwe, 38, as the lead suspects in the three-year FBI investigation of romance scams, business e-mail compromise, wire fraud and money laundering. At the end of the investigation, about 80 Nigerians were indicted, with some of the accomplices still in Nigeria. Iro and Igbokwe’s role was to ensure the laundering of money deposited by a victim into a bank account or a money services account.

According to the FBI, Iro and Igbokwe coordinated the transfer of victims’ funds from a fraudulent bank account they controlled in US bank accounts belonging to illicit money exchangers.

“Those money exchangers, in turn, used a Nigerian banking application to transfer other funds in naira from Nigerian bank accounts they controlled to the Nigerian bank accounts specified by Iro and Igbokwe,” the FBI said in a statement.

The authorities said this strategy was used to transfer millions of dollars to Nigerian co-conspirators without directly transferring funds overseas.

Mrs Ngozi Olejeme

She is on the run for diverting N69bn public fund, and money laundering. The Former Chairman of Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund has been living in the shadows since she fled the country to evade arrest for allegedly diverting N69bn alongside a former Managing Director of the NSITF, Mr Umar Abubakar. They were said to have stolen the money by awarding bogus contracts and through other financial malpractices. They allegedly committed the crime with Mrs Theresa Ittu Olejeme.

Affiong, a principal suspect in two cases of fraud, Adjunct Prof. Olufunmilade Adeyemi, Haruna Adamu Gazau, Jennifer Turnah, two Chinese, Liang Zhang, Junyuang Jiang, and Christopher Achebe.

Olejeme, hails from Asaba, Oshimili South Local Government Areas of Delta State and speaks English and Igbo languages fluently, while her last known address was given as No 14 J.F. Kennedy Street, Asokoro, Abuja. Following her escape, the EFCC detained her sureties, a former president of the Nigerian Bar Association, Ikeja, Lagos State branch; Monday Ubani and Christopher Enai, an ex-senator representing Bayelsa State.

They were subsequently granted bail by Justice Silvanus Orji of FCT High Court, Apo, in the sum of N50m, with two sureties who must be civil servants on Grade Level 15, after their lawyer, Mike Ozekhome, challenged their detention in court.

Government Ekpemupolo

He is wanted by the EFCC for N45.9bn fraud.

The EFCC declared the former Niger Delta militant leader, Government Ekpemupolo, alias Tompolo, wanted in February, 2016. The anti-graft agency in an advertorial signed by its Head of Media and Publicity, Wilson Uwujaren, said it declared Tompolo wanted following two bench warrants issued against him by a Federal High Court in Lagos, where he was charged with N45.9bn fraud.

He was said to have illegally diverted the money belonging to the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency. The 50-year-old, dark-complexioned native of Okerenkoko, Gbaramotu Kingdom in the Warri South-West Local Government Area of Delta State, went underground and had not been seen since then.

His last known address was given as No. 1, Chief Agbanu Street, DDPA Extension, Warri, Delta State. The fugitive, who wielded political influence in his state, is said to speak both Izon and English languages.

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