A 31-year-old Nigerian, Uchenna Christian Nlemchi, has been extradited to the United States to face fraud charges.
This was made known by the United States Attorney for the District of New Mexico, Alexander M.M. Uballez, and FBI Special Agent Raul Bujanda, in a statement on Thursday.
Nlemchi, who made his first appearance in a federal court in Albuquerque, New Mexico on June 7 was extradited following an indictment by a federal grand jury in May 2017 charging him with conspiracy, wire fraud, counts of money laundering, aggravated identify theft, and conspiracy to commit money laundering.
According to the indictment, Nlemchi and his co-conspirators registered with online dating websites to initiate romantic relationships with victims to trick those individuals into transferring money to them by way of false and fraudulent pretenses, representations and promises.
Simultaneously, the co-conspirators used phishing emails and malware to collect other victims’ email account names and passwords.
They used this information to spy on email correspondence to identify upcoming financial transactions in order to divert and steal said funds and transfer them to bank accounts controlled by Nlemchi.
Nlemchi was arrested on these charges in June of 2017 and released on conditions pending trial.
In October 2017, Nlemchi violated the conditions of his release, and an arrest warrant was issued. At that time, Nlemchi fled the country and was believed to have returned to Nigeria.
The FBI pursued Nlemchi for five years before locating him in Hungary. Nlemchi was extradited to the United States and arrested on June 6, 2023.
Nlemchi will be remanded in custody pending trial, which has not been scheduled.
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