Possible fallout from Obinwanne Okeke's guilty plea to US charges
On 18 June 2020 the US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia announced that Nigerian entrepreneur Obinwanne Okeke, who operated a group of companies known as the ‘Invictus Group’, has pleaded guilty to a computer-based intrusion fraud scheme that resulted in $11 million in losses for his victims. Okeke, a self-proclaimed young billionaire, was arrested in August 2019 and has been in custody since then, initially pleading not guilty to the charges against him.
At the time of his arrest, it was reported that Unatrac Limited, a subsidiary of heavy equipment company Caterpillar, was among the companies targeted by Okeke and his co-conspirators in a business email compromise scheme. More than $11 million was said to have been traced to the ring, and it has been claimed that Okeke used proceeds from these activities to establish legitimate business enterprises in Nigeria…