A Georgia man was sentenced on July 20 to six years in prison for participating in a scheme that defrauded victim entities of $1.7 million by illegally accessing their email accounts and posing as vendors to request payments.
Chinedu Opute, 43, of LaGrange, Georgia, received a 72-month sentence from U.S. District Judge Bridget Meehan Brennan after pleading guilty in January to conspiracy to commit wire fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and aggravated identity theft. In addition to the prison term, Opute was ordered to serve three years of supervised release, pay a $15,000 fine, and pay over $1.4 million in restitution.
According to court documents and evidence presented in court, Opute and his co-conspirators compromised business email accounts throughout 2023. They identified legitimate vendors owed money by the victims and then sent fraudulent emails instructing the victims to send payments to bank accounts controlled by the conspirators. Opute set up these bank accounts for receiving stolen funds.
Specifically, prosecutors said that early in 2023 Opute established a fake company called Overseas Dry Food Supplier LLC (ODFS) and used a false identity named Angel Adames to open an account under this name. In June 2023 alone, this account received more than $1 million from three victims—including a local government entity in northern Ohio—before Opute disbursed the funds onto prepaid credit cards made out as gig employee payments and withdrew them at Atlanta-area ATMs.
Opute kept about 30-40% of the stolen funds for personal use, including making a $200,000 down payment on an Atlanta condo as well as purchasing a $100,000 Range Rover and luxury jewelry. Authorities determined eight victims lost a combined total of $1.7 million due to his actions; investigators also found he had targeted others with attempts totaling another $5.1 million.
The investigation was led by the FBI Cleveland Division while Assistant United States Attorney Megan R. Miller prosecuted the case for the Northern District of Ohio—a federal office responsible for law enforcement across forty northern counties that promotes community safety through outreach efforts with schools and law enforcement agencies, according to the official website.