A Nigerian national, Uwa Nosakhare, has been sentenced to six years’ imprisonment for fraud charges in a Florida real estate scam.

Mr Nosakhare’s sentencing came three months after pleading guilty to charges of aggravated identity theft and mail fraud in January following fraudulent attempts by the defendant to sell several properties located in Palm Beach County in Florida without the owners’ authorisation, court documents showed.

According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Southern District of Florida, between April 2022 and April 2023, the 26-year-old and his gang stole personal identifiable information of their victims without them knowing.

Then, they used the information to create fake driver’s licences, notary credentials, bank account statements, and other property sale documents.

Following each successful fraudulent property sale, Mr Nosakhare and his gang provided buyers with wire instructions to transfer the sale proceeds to bank accounts controlled by those involved in the scheme, raking up $143,000 in the process, the U.S. Attorney’s Office added.

Court documents revealed that Mr Nosakhare was first identified by the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office after he was caught on video at FedEx locations sending fake documents, with the findings quickly forwarded to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which led to a grand jury indictment against him on fraud charges in July 2024.

He was subsequently arrested by Homeland Security Investigations four months later after he attempted to flee to Canada upon learning that authorities were on him and ended up striking a deal with the prosecution by pleading guilty to his charges without going to trial for a reduced sentence.

Delivering his judgment, Judge Donald Middlebrooks of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida sentenced him to six years’ imprisonment and three years of supervised release and ordered him to pay restitution.

The judge also ordered that the defendant be deported back to Nigeria upon completion of his sentence.