Date: June 18, 2025
Contact: [email protected]
CHICAGO — A foreign national has been sentenced to three and a half years in federal prison for conducting a variety of cyber fraud schemes that victimized U.S. citizens and businesses.
Ridwan Adeleke Adepoju and co-schemers operated multiple fraud schemes from Nigeria, including phishing scams, romance scams, and the submission of fraudulent tax returns. The scams involved multiple spoofed email addresses, fictional social media personas, and unwitting money mules. Adepoju’s schemes victimized numerous U.S. citizens and businesses, including individuals and companies in the Chicago area.
Adepoju, of Lagos, Nigeria, was arrested last year in the United Kingdom and extradited to the United States. He pleaded guilty in March to federal wire fraud and aggravated identity theft charges. On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Matthew F. Kennelly imposed a 43-month prison sentence.
The sentence was announced by Andrew S. Boutros, United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, Ramsey E. Covington, Special Agent-in-Charge of IRS Criminal Investigation in Chicago, and Douglas S. DePodesta, Special Agent-in-Charge of the Chicago Field Office of the FBI.
"Defendant’s offense involved a years-long, complex scheme, involving several types of scams and many victims,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Ann Marie E. Ursini argued in the government’s sentencing memorandum. “Defendant chose to be a willing participant in the scheme over and over again.”
IRS Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI) is the law enforcement arm of the IRS, responsible for conducting financial crime investigations, including tax fraud, narcotics trafficking, money laundering, public corruption, healthcare fraud, identity theft and more. IRS-CI special agents are the only federal law enforcement agents with investigative jurisdiction over violations of the Internal Revenue Code, obtaining a 90% federal conviction rate. The agency has 19 field offices located across the U.S. and 14 attaché posts abroad.