By Pascal Ibe

Claim

An X user, Naija, has shared a photo of three Nigerians and claimed that they were the fraud suspects who were sentenced to US prison recently over a fraud scheme targeting elderly people.

Verdict

This image attached to the post is MISLEADING. The US Justice Dept report confirmed that three Nigerians, Fatai Okunola, Oluwaseyi Adeola, and Ijeoma Adeola, were sentenced to prison in the U.S. for a $2 million fraud scheme targeting the elderly and vulnerable. However, the image this X user attached to the post was a 2017 image of three Nigerian scammers jailed for 235 years in America.

Full Text

An X user, Naija, has shared a photo of three Nigerians and claimed that they were the fraud suspects who were sentenced to US prison recently over a fraud scheme targeting elderly people.

The X user shared a photo of three men with a caption that reads, “Three Nigerians, Fatai Okunola, Oluwaseyi Adeola, and Ijeoma Adeola, were sentenced to prison in the U.S. for a $2 million fraud scheme targeting the elderly and vulnerable.

The pod on X generated over  8k views and more than 100 likes.

Many who commented believed that the men in the photo were the ones who were recently sentenced to US prison.

Verification 

This Fact Checker subjected the photo to s simple Google Image Reverse Search and found out that the three men in the photo are the three Nigerian scammers who befriended many of their victims on dating sites and were slammed  234 years prison sentences by a Mississippi court in 2017.

Oladimeji Seun Ayelotan, 30, was sentenced to 95 years in prison; Rasaq Aderoju Raheem, 31, was given 115 years and Femi Alexander Mewase, 45, got 25 years behind bars.

A court in the Southern District of Mississippi had in February found them all guilty of crimes, including mail fraud, wire fraud, identity theft, credit card fraud, and theft of government property. Ayelotan and Raheem were also found guilty of conspiracies to commit bank fraud and money laundering.

Check the report that corroborates this story here and here.

However, the recent fraud case which was reported by US Justice Dept, didn’t have any picture attached to it.

According to the US Justice Dept, Fatai Okunola, 38, of Kalamazoo, received a prison sentence of just over 10 years for his role in the conspiracy and was ordered to pay more than $730,000 in restitution.

Okunola was sentenced to five years for making false statements during naturalization and 10 years for money laundering, with all sentences to run concurrently.

Two residents of Dallas were also sentenced. Oluwaseyi Adeola, 34, was sentenced to nearly three years in prison and ordered to pay approximately $410,000 in restitution.

Ijeoma Adeola, 36, received three years’ probation for misprision of a felony and was ordered to pay just under $49,000 in restitution.

The defendants conspired with individuals in Nigeria to scam U.S. residents, many of whom were elderly or vulnerable.

See a similar report here 

Conclusion 

The X user used a 2017 photo of jailed scammers to depict a recent fraud case in the US. Therefore, it’s MISLEADING.