$11m Cyber Fraud: Court Orders Forfeiture Of N280m Traced To Invictus Obi

The Federal High Court in Lagos has ordered the temporary forfeiture of the sum of N280,555,010.65 discovered in the bank accounts of Invictus Oil and Gas Limited and Invictus Investment Limited.

Obinwanne Okeke aka Invictus is currently standing trial in the U.S over an alleged $11m cyber fraud, following his recent arrest by the FBI.

EFFC had told the court that the two firms were owned by Invictus, described as “a strong leader of a cyber crime syndicate that specialised in business e-mail compromise.”

Following an ex parte application by the EFCC on Monday, Justice Rilwan Aikawa made an order for the temporary forfeiture of the money.

EFCC lawyer, Rotimi Oyedepo, had told the court that he was assigned to investigate a request for information on Invictus and three others by the U.S Department of Justice, Office of the Legal Attache, US Consulate-General.

He added that the funds in the accounts were “reasonably suspected” to be proceeds of cyber crime and urged the judge to order its forfeiture to the Federal Government to prevent Okeke from dissipating same.

In 2016, 31-year-old Obi was celebrated by Forbes as one of Africa’s “most outstanding 30 entrepreneurs under the age of 30.”

He was later arrested in 2018 by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and he is currently standing trial in the USA for allegedly defrauding some US citizens to the tune of $11million “through fraudulent wire transfer instructions in a massive, coordinated, business e-mail compromise scheme.”