Obinwanne Okeke, the Nigerian young ‘businessman’ who was recently arrested in the United States for $11 million fraud, could spend up to 30 years in jail if convicted.
According to PREMIUM TIMES, Mr Okeke was charged with two counts of computer fraud and wire fraud, which carry a maximum 10 and 20 years respectively.
Obinwanne Okeke, widely known as Invictus Obi, is being remanded at 401 Courthouse Square, Alexandria, VA 22314, which serves as the district headquarters of the U.S. Marshall Service.
His remand order was issued at a preliminary hearing shortly after his arrest, just moments before he was scheduled to return to Nigeria.
He appeared before Michael Nachmanoff, a magistrate with the District Court of Eastern District of Virginia, on August 7 to answer charges of wire fraud.
The charges were investigated by the F.B.I. and filed against Mr Okeke by the U.S. Department of Justice, with both authorities saying they were convinced that Mr Okeke duped a UK subsidiary of Caterpillar up to $11 million in business email fraud, amongst other charges.
Mr Okeke has since hired John Iweanoge, a Washington D.C. criminal attorney of Nigerian origin, as his lead defence counsel.
However, Joshua Stueve, a spokesperson for the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia, warned that Mr Okeke would likely get below the maximum sentence.
