By Rédaction Africa Links 24 with GORDON OSEN
Published on 2024-01-18 01:50:55
Two Nigerian men who were wanted in the United States for wire and computer fraud and had fled to hide in Kenya were ordered to be extradited to face trial after being arrested and held in Nairobi in June of last year. Ebuka Umeti and Frankline Okwonna were arrested after US authorities sent formal extradition requests to Kenya. They had indictments and arrest warrants against them from a court in Virginia.
The fugitives remained in the Industrial Area remand for the rest of the year as the DPP pushed their extradition application through a magistrates’ court. Umeti and Okwonna allegedly defrauded their victims of over $1.1 million and had been on the run for close to a year by the time of their arrest in Nairobi, as the indictments had been issued in August 2022.
Their alleged offenses include conspiracy, wire fraud, and computer intrusion for which they had been formally charged. Court documents said the offenses were also punishable in Kenya. The US authorities alleged that Umeti and Okwonna, along with their accomplices, conducted business email scams, distributed various types of malicious software and malware, and gained unauthorized access to computers of businesses located in the US and elsewhere between February 2019 and July 2020, exploiting the access to deceive victims into transferring funds into the custody of financial institutions and banks.
The DPP said the evidential threshold cited against the two was solid to warrant the court endorsing the arrest warrants and granting the writ of extradition sought for the two to be brought to justice. Okwonna’s defense claimed that his rights under the Kenyan Constitution had been violated through illegal detention and argued that the evidence against them was inferior, contradictory, and did not warrant being sent to the US to be charged.
The court, however, dismissed the defenses and ruled that the two had their cases well proven against them. The extradition order was given on December 15.
Read the original article on The Star
