CLEVELAND, Ohio — A Troup County man has been sentenced to years in prison in Cleveland, Ohio, for his involvement in an email fraud scheme.
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The scheme swindled eight victims out of a combined $1.7 million by illegally accessing email accounts and diverting legitimate payments.
A judge sentenced Chinedu Opute,43, of Lagrange to six years in prison after he pleaded guilty in January to conspiracy to commit wire fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and aggravated identity theft. Opute was also ordered to serve three years of supervised release after imprisonment, pay a $15,000 fine, and pay over $1.4 million in restitution.
The fraud involved Opute and his co-conspirators compromising business email accounts to impersonate vendors and request fraudulent payments.
According to court documents and evidence presented in court, Opute and his co-conspirators engaged in a widespread campaign in 2023 to compromise business email accounts and steal victim funds. They gained unauthorized access to email accounts and then posed as legitimate third-party creditors or vendors to whom the victim businesses owed money.
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The conspirators then sent fraudulent emails with payment instructions directing victims to send funds to bank accounts controlled by the conspirators. Opute was specifically responsible for setting up the bank accounts used to receive and disburse the stolen funds. In early 2023, he established a fake company named Overseas Dry Food Supplier LLC.
He also created a fake identity, Angel Adames, which he used to open a bank account in the name of ODFS.In June 2023, the ODFS bank account received more than $1 million in stolen funds from three victims, including a local government entity in the Northern District of Ohio.
Opute immediately disbursed these stolen funds by loading them onto prepaid credit cards. These transactions were disguised to look like payments to gig employees. Opute then withdrew the funds from the prepaid cards at ATMs in the Atlanta area.
Opute kept 30 to 40% of the stolen funds, using the money to finance a lavish lifestyle. This included making a $200,000 down payment on an Atlanta-area condo and purchasing a $100,000 Range Rover and luxury jewelry. In total, eight victims lost a combined $1.7 million because of Opute’s scheme.
Investigators also discovered that Opute and his co-conspirators had targeted other victims in attempts to obtain an additional $5.1 million through fraud.
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