{"id":64621,"date":"2025-04-23T10:24:24","date_gmt":"2025-04-23T10:24:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/?p=64621"},"modified":"2025-04-23T10:24:24","modified_gmt":"2025-04-23T10:24:24","slug":"fbi-nabs-nigerian-in-us-over-covid-fund-romance-scam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/2025\/04\/23\/fbi-nabs-nigerian-in-us-over-covid-fund-romance-scam\/","title":{"rendered":"FBI Nabs Nigerian in US Over COVID Fund, Romance Scam"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Njoku Chijioke<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>A Nigerian man, Ebuka Iwuagwu, has been arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Atlanta for allegedly defrauding the United States government of pandemic relief funds and orchestrating a romance scam running into hundreds of millions of naira.<\/p>\n<p>According to reports, Iwuagwu and his associates created a fake company and fabricated employee records to illegally secure over 52,000 dollars in COVID-19 relief from the Washington Security Employment Department at the height of the pandemic in 2020.<\/p>\n<p>The arrest marks a major development in an ongoing investigation into fraudulent schemes that targeted the US during a time of national crisis.<\/p>\n<p>Authorities say Iwuagwu not only exploited public funds meant to cushion the impact of the pandemic but also ran a romance scam designed to deceive unsuspecting individuals.<\/p>\n<p>He now faces prosecution under Title 18 of the United States Code, which addresses fraud and false claims.<\/p>\n<p>The case will be heard in a US court where the outcome will depend on the strength of the evidence.<\/p>\n<p>Law enforcement agencies have vowed to continue cracking down on cross-border cyber and financial crimes, with this arrest sending a clear message that justice will take its course regardless of nationality.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Njoku Chijioke A Nigerian man, Ebuka Iwuagwu, has been arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Atlanta for allegedly defrauding the United States government of pandemic relief funds and orchestrating a romance scam running into hundreds of millions of naira. According to reports, Iwuagwu and his associates created a fake company and fabricated [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":64622,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[181,172],"tags":[59],"class_list":["post-64621","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-crime","category-news","tag-featured"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64621","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64621"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64621\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":64623,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64621\/revisions\/64623"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64622"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}