The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) of the United States of America has initiated a court process for the forfeiture of property belonging to Lagos-based fra¥dster, Ehiremen Aigbokhan.
AIgbokhan is accused of stealing over ₦460 million in cryptocurrency contributed for Donald Trump’s 2025 inauguration.
The suspect, working with his accomplices, allegedly used a Business Email Compromise (BEC) scheme to purporting to emanate from the Trump-Vance Inaugural Committee, to mislead donors into sending funds to crypto wallets under their control.
One of the funds so fraudulently collected was from a donor on December 26, 2024, who acted on a fake email from a *.com address closely resembling the official *.com address used by committee co-chair Steve Witkoff.
The hapless donor sent a whopping 250,300 USDT.ETH, valued at over ₦400 million, to the fra¥dsters’ wallet.
Once the money was sent, 215,000 USDT.ETH was quickly dispersed to various crypto wallets.
The FBI was able to trace the funds and instructed the crypto company, Tether, to freeze the funds, which it did on December 31.
Further investigations traced the fraudulent activity to an account Aigbokhan created in October 2024, which remained without any funds until it received proceeds from the fraud.
Analysis of the movement of the funds pointed to multiple fraudulent email accounts and IP addresses in Lagos, Nigeria, further implicating Aigbokhan.
About ₦60 million in crypto have been seized from two wallets connected to Aigbokhan.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Rick Blaylock Jr has initiated a court process for forfeiture of the money.
The US is also working on an arrest warrant against Aigbokhan in connection with the massive fraud.
