A 29-year-old Nigerian man identified as Chidozie Collins Obasi has been declared wanted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation over his involvement in a ventilator fraud worth $30m.
According to a statement released by the United States Department of Justice, Colins, alongside other coconspirators, disguised as a ventilator seller as the world battled the deadly COVID-19 Pandemic that killed 6,515,255 people across the world.
Following investigations by the FBI, Obasi was charged by indictment with one count of conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud, six counts of mail fraud, and 16 counts of wire fraud.
Announcing Obasi’s indictment, US Attorney Jacqueline C. Romero revealed that all charges stemmed from a complicated, evolving fraud scheme that initially targeted Americans through a spam email campaign offering illegitimate “work from home” jobs, and then during the COVID-19 pandemic shifted to targeting U.S. hospitals and medical systems by offering non-existent ventilators for sale beginning in March 2020, and finally shifted again in June 2020 to using stolen identity information of American citizens to apply for and obtain Economic Injury Disaster Loans (“EID Loans”).
“The Indictment alleges that Obasi perpetrated this fraud from Nigeria, with the help of co-conspirators in Canada and elsewhere. The defendant and his co-conspirators are alleged to have obtained more than $31,000,000 through this multi-faceted fraud scheme, with the overwhelming majority of that money – more than $30 million – coming from the State of New York for the intended purchase of ventilators.”
The DoJ revealed that Obasi began the scheme in September 2018 and alongside his co-conspirators obtained more than $1 million in this manner.
The Indictment further alleges that “in approximately March 2020, soon after the COVID-19 pandemic hit the United States and ventilators were in high demand, Obasi posed as a representative of an Indonesian-based medical supply company offering ventilators for sale, and claimed to have a large stockpile of ventilators manufactured by a German company whose headquarters was in Telford, PA. The defendant allegedly convinced a medical equipment broker in the U.S. to broker sales of these non-existent ventilators, and ultimately deceived the State of New York into wiring more than $30 million for the purchase of ventilators that did not exist. Obasi continued to target other potential customers with this same scam, including hospitals.
“Later, in approximately June 2020, the Indictment alleges that Obasi and his co-conspirators took advantage of the EID Loan program by using stolen identities of U.S. citizens to apply for and obtain more than $135,000 in EID Loan proceeds.
“If caught and convicted, Obasi faces a maximum sentence of 621 years in prison, a five-year period of supervised release, and a $5,750,000 fine. Obasi also will be required to make full restitution of the more than $31,000,000 that he obtained by fraud.” the DOJ statement noted.
