Gbenga Felipe: Nigerian Man Sentenced To 12 Years In Texas For Phishing Scam – Crime

Tarrant County Hopes Sentence Discourages Criminals…

(Fort Worth, TX) – 372nd District Court Judge Scott Wisch on Wednesday sentenced Gbenga Fadipe to 12 years in prison after he pled guilty to first-degree felony Theft greater than $300,000.

The offense involved $693,625.77 in funds stolen from the City of Fort Worth.

“If criminals are deciding who to target, and they know Tarrant County judges are giving sentences like this, they may avoid this area in the future,” Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney Sharen Wilson said.

Here’s how the theft occurred.

In October 2017, a change of account request was submitted to the city of Fort Worth that appeared to be from Imperial Construction, which was doing business with the city. The fraudulent request, which was granted, was to update Imperial’s wiring instructions so that Fort Worth’s invoice payments due to Imperial would be directed to a new account at Chase Bank.

Fadipe, 50, was the sole authorized user of the new Chase account. Once money was transferred by the city into that account, Fadipe immediately moved those stolen funds into four other accounts he controlled at Prosperity Bank and Capital One Bank between November 2017 and early 2018.

Assistant DA Believes Fadipe Had Help

Within two weeks of liquidating all the funds that totaled $693,625.77, Fadipe flew from the United States to London and then to Nigeria. He eventually returned to the United States and was arrested in the Houston area. He was taken into custody Wednesday night, May 12, to begin serving his sentence.

“We do not believe this defendant acted alone,” said Nathan Martin, the assistant criminal district attorney who prosecuted the case.

Yussuph Hazeez in Harris County faces criminal charges relating to this case.