SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico
A federal jury has convicted Oluwasegun Baiyewu, 37, of Richmond, Texas, for conspiring to launder money tied to international fraud operations, officials announced Tuesday.
Following a 22-day trial, prosecutors showed that Baiyewu and four others — Oluwaseun Adelekan, 40, and Temitope Omotayo, 40, both of Staten Island, N.Y.; Ifeoluwa Dudubo, 37, of Austin, Texas; and Temitope Suleiman, 37, also of Richmond, Texas — funneled proceeds from a range of scams, including romance fraud, pandemic unemployment relief fraud, and business email compromise schemes.
The schemes disproportionately targeted elderly and vulnerable Americans.
A superseding indictment charged five defendants with conspiring in 2020 and 2021 to launder proceeds from scams targeting older adults in California, Illinois, Washington, and Nevada, as well as business email compromise schemes in Puerto Rico and Missouri.
Prosecutors said the defendants and co-conspirators moved the illicit funds through hundreds of transactions, including purchasing used cars later shipped to Nigeria.
Sentencing will take place before U.S. District Judge Raúl M. Arias-Marxuach in Puerto Rico.
The U.S. Postal Inspection Service, the Department of Labor OIG, and the FBI San Juan Cyber Task Force are investigating the case.