Two U.S.-based Nigerians, Olumide Olorunfunmi and Emmanuel Unuigbe, have been sentenced to five years in prison for their involvement in multimillion-dollar money laundering of illicit criminal proceeds.

U.S. Attorney for the Western District of North Carolina, Russ Ferguson, sentenced the duo to “30 months in prison respectively for laundering millions of dollars in criminal proceeds that were derived from fraud schemes targeting hundreds of victims” on Tuesday, the U.S. Department of Justice announced in a statement.

Messrs Olorunfunmi, 40, and Unuigbe, 43, were each sentenced to two and a half years in prison with three years of supervised release for laundering criminal proceeds from “romance scams” and “business email compromise schemes.”

The duo, who had pleaded guilty, were each ordered to pay more than $4.6 million in restitution to U.S. authorities.

According to court documents and proceedings, from 2020 through 2023, Mr Olorunfunmi conspired with Mr Unuigbe and others to launder the criminal proceeds of various illegal activities, including romance scams that typically targeted elderly victims and business email compromise schemes.

Citing court documents, the DoJ said the illegal scheme Messrs Olorunfunmi and Unuigbe were involved in “caused more than 125 victims to transfer over $4.5 million of proceeds stemming from illegal activities.”

It added, “the victims of the schemes were directed to transfer funds into domestic and international bank accounts controlled by Olorunfunmi, Unuigbe, and their co-conspirators. Upon receiving the fraud proceeds, Olorunfunmi, Unuigbe, and their co-conspirators transferred the funds to other bank accounts in the U.S. and overseas.”

The duo of Mr Olorunfunmi and Mr Unuigbe profited from the fraudulent schemes, cornering a portion of the criminal proceeds obtained through the operations.

“They (Messrs Olorunfunmi and Unuigbe) also profited by agreeing to ‘pay’ for the domestic deposits received by others by transferring Nigerian Naira from accounts the co-conspirators controlled in Nigeria to other accounts in Nigeria, based upon a ‘black market’ exchange rate for United States Dollars to Naira,” the DoJ said.

This sentence comes less than a week after an extradited Nigerian Yahoo boy, Imoleayo Aina, bagged six years in jail for sextortion and cyberstalking that resulted in the death of an American.

In August, Joseph Oloyede, the Apetu of Ipetumodu in Osun State, was sentenced to five years in prison in the U.S. over his role in a multimillion-dollar COVID-19 relief fraud.