The Federal Bureau of Investigation has filed a civil forfeiture complaint to seize property belonging to Lagos-based fraudster Ehiremen Aigbokhan for stealing more than N460 million in funds meant for U.S. President Donald Trump’s 2025 inauguration.
The FBI is also actively pursuing an arrest warrant for Mr Aigbokhan in connection with a cryptocurrency fraud and money laundering scheme that targeted a donor intending to contribute to the Trump-Vance Inaugural Committee.
According to legal filings seen by Peoples Gazette, Mr Aigbokhan and his co-conspirators carried out a sophisticated fraudulent operation using the notorious Business Email Compromise scheme to trick their victims into sending money to cryptocurrency accounts belonging to them.
In the weeks leading up to the inauguration on January 20, 2025, the FBI reported that fraudsters created several fake email addresses to mimic the legitimate ones used for the ceremony, which they sent to dozens of people, requesting donations for Mr Trump’s swearing-in ceremony.
On December 26, 2024, one of these fake emails, with the address @t47lnaugural.com, was sent to a victim to mimic @t47inaugural.com, the official email of the co-chair of the Trump-Vance Inaugural Committee, Steve Wiktoff.
The victim subsequently sent 250,300 USDT.ETH to the criminals. The 250,300 USDT.ETH is estimated to be worth over ₦400 million at the current black market rate.
Within days of receiving the money, the perpetrators immediately disbursed 215,000 USDT.ETH to several crypto wallets before the FBI caught wind of the scam and requested crypto operator Tether to freeze the accounts, which the company voluntarily adhered to on December 31, court documents showed.
Following the scam, the FBI immediately launched an investigation into the matter, and records of the crypto address associated with the scheme were traced back to Mr Aigbokhan in Lagos.
Investigations by the FBI revealed that part of the stolen funds were transferred to a Binance.com account registered to Mr Aigbokhan, who created the account in October 2024. The Binance account had no prior deposits before receiving transfers from the scam wallet.
Further digital forensics linked the fraudulent email accounts and cryptocurrency transactions to Nigeria, with IP address data consistently tracing logins and email activity to Lagos, corroborating the connection to Mr Aigbokhan.
The agency said 20,017 USDT.ETH was seized from Mr Aigbokhan’s wallet, and another 20,336 USDT.ETH from 0xC7bdBA7ffB126F68E8454C, totalling over N60 million in black market rate, which Rick Blaylock Jr, the Assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, is asking the court to declare its forfeiture.
