US court sentences Nigerian man to 40 months in prison for scheme to steal identities and claim tax refunds

A Nigerian man, Onomen Uduebor, aka Onomen Onohi, who was arrested and extradited from the UK on an indictment in the Western District of Washington, was sentenced in U.S. District Court in Seattle to 40 months in prison.

The Acting U.S. Attorney Teal Luthy Miller, who announced the sentencing in a press statement on Monday, June 30, 2025 said Uduebor and co-conspirators duped HR staff into sending employee tax information; filed for $1.4 million in tax refunds and obtained $140,000.

Uduebor, 39, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and aggravated identity theft for the scheme to steal and use income tax data for fraud.

At the sentencing hearing on Monday, U.S. District Judge James L. Robart said, “He freely participated in the fraud and had a substantial role in the scheme. Thirty years old is not a young man and he ought to have known better.”

“This defendant participated in a conspiracy that involved tricking companies around the United States, including a Tukwila-based company, into providing W-2 information on their employees. If the targeted Human Resources employee resisted providing the information via email, a schemer berated them via email posing as the company CEO,” said Acting U.S. Attorney Miller.

“This conduct damaged companies, employees, and the Internal Revenue Service. While the IRS caught most of the fake tax refund filings, it left the individual victims with tax headaches and a sense of fear since their identities had been stolen.”

According to the indictment, between February 2016 and April 2017, the conspirators created false emails that appeared to come from a company executive asking the Human Resources Department for the W-2 data.

The conspirators manipulated the email so that any reply would go to an email address that they controlled.  The conspirators then used the information from the W-2s to file more than 300 bogus tax returns claiming more than $1 million in tax refunds. The conspirators targeted companies across the U.S. in this scheme.

Uduebor admits that he filed 150 of the false tax returns and tracked the refunds and payments to bank accounts that the schemers set up in the names of the victims. While the IRS paid out about $140,000 to the fraudsters, Uduebor says he received only $10,000 from the scheme. The IRS was able to seize some of the money back from the conspirators, so the total restitution owed to the U.S. Treasury is $122,720.

Uduebor was ordered to forfeit the $10,000 that he admitted to earning and pay $122,720 in restitution to the IRS.

In asking the court for a three-year prison sentence, Assistant United States Attorney Miriam Hinman wrote to the court, “This scheme harmed individual taxpayers, victim companies, and the IRS…. Taxpayers had trouble filing their real tax returns, and they expended a large amount of time and emotional energy on resolving their tax situation.

This process delayed refunds, sometimes causing problems for taxpayers who relied on receiving the refund funds. Taxpayers have had lasting stress and expenses related to protecting themselves from identity theft.”

Speaking in court, Uduebor said “I have read the victim impact statements and I know an apology is not enough…. I was desperate to succeed in my music career. It is not an excuse, but it is the truth.”

Uduebor was arrested in the United Kingdom in September 2023. He arrived in the U.S. in March 2025. He pleaded guilty in April 2025. Uduebor will likely be deported to Nigeria following his prison term.

The case was investigated by the Internal Revenue Service – Criminal Investigations (IRS-CI).

The case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Miriam Hinman. The U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of International Affairs provided valuable assistance with the extradition process.

Source: LIB