EFCC apprehends suspect on FBI’s wanted list in Enugu

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission’s (EFCC) Enugu Zonal Command has arrested a suspect on the FBI’s (FBI) watch list, Emmanuel Dike Chidiebere, for conspiracy, wire fraud, and money laundering.

In a statement issued on Wednesdays, the EFCC said, acting on verified intelligence, Commission operatives tracked the suspect to Orlu Local Government Area in Imo State where he was apprehended.

Chidiebere is accused of defrauding various people in the United States, Côte d’Ivoire, and Poland of an undisclosed sum of money before disappearing.

Three of his accomplices are still at large.

The suspect’s arrest comes few weeks after the EFCC apprehended two other individuals on the FBI’s wanted-list.

Osondu Igwilo and Kelechi Vitalis Anozie, were apprehended in Lagos and Enugu respectively, they had been on the watchlist of the FBI for a few years now.

Wilson Uwujaren, an EFCC spokesman, said that 52-year-old Igwilo, the suspected leader of a criminal network of ‘catchers,’ was arrested at a studio in Lagos’ Sangotedo neighborhood for alleged fraud, money laundering, and identity theft totaling $100 million.

“Before their arrest, Igwilo and his accomplices had allegedly been involved in an advance-fee scheme that involved false promises of investment funding by individuals who impersonated some United States of America (USA) bank officials in person and via the internet,” Uwujaren said in the statement.

“Investigation revealed that those who fell victims of the suspects’ criminal activities were asked to make certain payments before they could receive their funding.

“It was also revealed that proceeds of the scheme were allegedly laundered through U.S. bank accounts and diverted back to the alleged perpetrators in Nigeria.”

Igwilo, the EFCC spokesman stated, was consequently placed on the FBI watchlist following a criminal complaint filed against him at the U.S. District Court in Houston, Texas in December 2016.

Following Igwilo’s arrest, the anti-graft agency’s officers recovered five residences in choice areas of Lagos, he said.

In Anozie’s case, EFCC disclosed that the suspected fraudster has been wanted since 2019.

Uwujaren said operatives arrested Anozie on the 10th of March, following an investigative trail of activities not unconnected to fraud and illegal money laundering.

Valentine Iro, Ekene Ekechukwu (alias Ogedi Power), Bright Azubuike (alias Bright Bauer Azubuike), and Ifeanyi Junior, all self-described clergymen, are accused of defrauding one F.F, who lives in Illinois, FraUnited States, of $135,800 and another $47,000.

Anozie, who is a self-professed clergyman and four other suspects: Valentine Iro, Ekene Ekechukwu (alias Ogedi Power), Bright Azubuike (alias Bright Bauer Azubuike), and Ifeanyi Junior, is alleged to have defrauded one F.F, who lives in Illinois, United States, the sum of $135,800 and another $47,000.

The suspect, who is the founder of a church called Praying City Church in Owerri, Imo State, was first placed on a watch list in 2019 when the FBI announced charges against 80 people, most of them Nigerians, in a wide-ranging fraud and money laundering operation that netted millions of dollars from victims of internet con jobs.