Chidozie Collins Obasi, a 29-year-old Nigerian man, has been listed as sought in the US for alleged fraud.
The Nigerian is charged with cheating US hospitals out of $31 million by allegedly offering for sale COVID-19 ventilators that didn’t exist.
The US Department of Justice (DoJ) revealed this in a statement on Friday.
Furthermore, between September 2018 and June 2020, the suspect operated his plan out of Nigeria with the assistance of international accomplices.
Through a complex fraud operation, Obasi and his collaborators reportedly obtained more than $31,000,000, with the majority coming from the State of New York. The statement reads,
“The scheme alleged in the Indictment began in September 2018, with a spam email campaign that offered phony “work from home” jobs.
“When a person responded to the phony job offer, Obasi or a co-conspirator posed as a representative of a legitimate company, often a supposed medical equipment supplier based outside the United States, and offered the person a job as the company’s U.S. representative with responsibilities including collecting on outstanding invoices.
“An accomplice in Canada then sent the new ’employee’ counterfeit checks purportedly from customers of the company, and the new ’employee’ deposited the checks, took a commission, and wired the rest of the money to a foreign bank account ostensibly owned by the fake company. Obasi and his co-conspirators obtained more than $1 million in this manner.
“In 2020, Obasi went further to pose as a ventilator salesman for an Indonesian medical supply company.
“In approximately March 2020, soon after the COVID-19 pandemic hit the United States and ventilators were in high demand, Obasi posed as a representative of an Indonesian-based medical supply company offering ventilators for sale and claimed to have a large stockpile of ventilators manufactured by a German company.
“Obasi allegedly convinced a medical equipment broker in the U.S. to broker sales of these non-existent ventilators, and ultimately deceived the State of New York into wiring more than $30 million for the purchase of ventilators that did not exist.
“He continued to target other potential customers with this same scam, including hospitals.
“Later, in approximately June 2020, Obasi and his accomplices took advantage of the EID Loan programme by using stolen identities of U.S. citizens to apply for and obtain more than $135,000 in EID Loan proceeds”.
Obasi is accused of “one count of conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud, six counts of mail fraud, and 16 counts of wire fraud,” according to the indictment sheet. Obasi is currently wanted for questioning.
If proven guilty, he may receive a term of up to 21 years in prison, five years of supervised release, a fine of $5,750,000, and be forced to pay back the whole amount of the more than $31,000,000 he is accused of defrauding.
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