A United States court has sentenced Nigerian national Tochukwu Albert Nnebocha to 97 months (over eight years) in prison for his role in a large-scale $6 million inheritance scam that targeted elderly and vulnerable Americans.

According to a statement released by the US Department of Justice (DOJ), the 44-year-old Nnebocha and his co-conspirators orchestrated a transnational inheritance fraud scheme over seven years, sending hundreds of thousands of personalized letters to American victims. The letters falsely claimed that recipients were entitled to a multimillion-dollar inheritance from deceased relatives and were sent on behalf of a supposed bank in Spain.

Victims were deceived into paying fees for delivery, taxes, and other “inheritance-related costs” before they could claim the fictitious funds. The DOJ confirmed that over 400 victims were defrauded, with losses totaling more than $6 million.

Nnebocha was arrested in Poland in April 2025 and extradited to the United States in September 2025. He pleaded guilty in November 2025 to conspiracy to commit mail fraud and wire fraud. At sentencing, the court imposed 97 months in prison, three years of supervised release, and restitution exceeding $6.8 million.

The DOJ noted that this case marks the second indictment related to this international fraud network, with eight co-conspirators from the UK, Spain, Portugal, and Nigeria already convicted and sentenced.

The investigation involved collaboration among the US Postal Inspection Service, Homeland Security Investigations, FBI Legal Attache in Poland, INTERPOL, Polish authorities, and the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida. Senior Trial Attorney Phil Toomajian and Trial Attorney Joshua D. Rothman of the DOJ Criminal Division’s Fraud Section prosecuted the case.