125 elderly Americans wiped out in $4.5m scam, 2 Nigerians jailed 

Two Nigerian-born men who helped run a multilayered fraud ring that wiped out the life savings of elderly victims across the United States have been jailed for their roles in a $4.5 million scam.

In Charlotte, North Carolina, 40-year-old Olumide Olorunfunmi and 43-year-old Emmanuel Unuigbe were each handed 30 months in prison on Tuesday, November 18, 2025, followed by three years of supervised release. They must also repay more than $4.6 million — the money investigators say came straight from the pockets of retirees who spent years saving it.

For three years, from 2020 to 2023, the men and their partners quietly preyed on some of society’s most vulnerable. Many of the victims were elderly Americans looking for companionship or simply trying to protect their businesses. Instead, they were lured into romance scams and tricked by business email compromise schemes that drained their accounts.

Investigators say over 125 people, grandparents, widows, lonely seniors saw their money vanish into accounts controlled by the defendants. From there, the funds were pushed through a maze of bank transfers and overseas routes designed to hide the trail.

Prosecutors revealed that Olorunfunmi and Unuigbe also converted portions of the stolen dollars into Nigerian Naira using black-market channels, pocketing profits along the way.

Both men pleaded guilty earlier in the year.

A third conspirator, Samson Amos, received five years of probation, including six months of home confinement, and will also pay restitution.

U.S. Attorney Russ Ferguson praised the FBI and partner agencies for cracking the case, saying the teams worked relentlessly to “bring justice to victims who lost not just money, but peace of mind.”