At the opening hearing of his fraud trial earlier this month,
Obinwanne Okeke, a Nigerian entrepreneur held in America over an
$11 million fraud, asked to see a public health dental
hygienist.
Theresa Buchanan, the magistrate handling the criminal matter,
subsequently granted Mr Okeke permission to see a dentist during
the hearing on August 7. She, however, insisted that the doctor
must attend to the suspect in custody.
It was unclear how long Mr Okeke had been having issues with his
teeth. He was arrested in the U.S. on August 6, just before he was
scheduled to return to Nigeria, and arraigned the next day.
The magistrate had remanded Mr Okeke in custody of the United
States Marshall Service after being slammed with two counts of
conspiracy to commit computer fraud and conspiracy to commit wire
fraud.
The F.B.I. had investigated Mr Okeke, widely known in Nigeria as
Invictus Obi, and found that he was involved in online fraudulent
activities that had fetched him millions of American dollars in
recent years. His arrest sent shockwaves across Nigeria’s social
media and blogosphere, having been previously profiled by several
local and international media outlets as a model for shrewd
business acumen for young people.
He had travelled to the U.S. apparently without a prior
knowledge that he was being investigated by the F.B.I. and settled
in Alexandria, Virginia, about 13 kilometres south of Washington
D.C.
The F.B.I. had in June 2018 received complaints from Unatrac, an
international subsidiary of heavy equipment manufacturer
Caterpillar, that Mr Okeke gained unauthorised access to the e-mail
account of its chief financial officer and authorised a series of
fictitious invoices to the tune of $11 million.
The F.B.I. also found that Mr Okeke had duped an American show
manufacturer and used several e-mail accounts which have previously
been linked to fraudulent activities online and flagged in the
F.B.I. database.
An 11-page affidavit detailing how Mr Okeke was identified as
the culprit and why he should be immediately arrested and charged
was published on U.S. government websites earlier this month.
Further hearing into the criminal trial will continue in the
coming weeks in the American courtroom.
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