A Nigerian citizen who lives in New Jersey has been sentenced to two years in prison for his role in an internet scheme that swindled people in countries around the world, including the United States.
Federal prosecutors said Tolulope Samuel Bodunde, 33, who was sentenced in U.S. District Court in New Haven, participated with two others in a scheme that tricked a variety of victims, including lonely women, to transfer money to accounts under their control.
Victims included a Connecticut-based financial company, a Colorado-based lending company, an Alaska-based nonprofit performing arts organization, a New York-based food and beverage company, and others, federal prosecutors said.
Bodunde, who was charged with fraud, and the others are accused of using “money mules” to receive fraud proceeds in their bank accounts, and then transfer the money to accounts controlled by the conspiracy.
Prosecutors said over the course of the scheme’s years-long operation, numerous victims were tricked into transferring funds into bank accounts the victims believed were under the control of legitimate recipients of the funds as part of normal business operations, when in reality, the bank accounts were controlled by the conspirators.
Bodunde’s role in the scheme included the exploitation of elderly women through romance scams to serve as unwitting money mules, the prosecutors said.
U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Meyer ordered Bodunde to pay restitution totaling $494,939 to three victims of this scheme.
