By Nkiruka Nnorom

The Federal Government has extradited a 26-year-old Nigerian, Afeez Olatunji Adewale, to the United States to face charges related to the sexual extortion and death of a young man in Pennsylvania.

Mr Adewale, the third Nigerian extradited in connection with the case, is charged with wire fraud and money laundering conspiracy.

He appeared in federal court in Philadelphia before U.S. Magistrate Judge Lynne A. Sitarski.

US Department of Justice explained in a statement that Adewale was arrested in Nigeria on August 17, 2023, as part of a wider operation with the FBI to apprehend sexual extortionists targeting minors in the United States.

He was extradited to the United States on Friday, February 13, 2026, with the assistance of the Justice Department’s Office of International Affairs, the FBI Legal Attaché in Abuja, and the FBI, who took him into custody.

The case, according to the Justice Department, was investigated by the FBI, Philadelphia’s Fort Washington Resident Agency and the Abington Township Police Department and is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Patrick Brown.

“The support and assistance of Nigerian security authorities was essential to this effort, notably that of Nigeria’s Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, the Federal Ministry of Justice’s International Criminal Justice Cooperation Department, and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission,” United States Attorney David Metcalf said in the statement.

Adewale’s co-defendants, Imoleayo Samuel Aina, 27, who goes by an alias, Alice Dave, and Samuel Olasunkanmi Abiodun, 26, were extradited to the U.S. in August 2024.

Abiodun pleaded guilty to money laundering conspiracy and wire fraud and was sentenced by United States District Judge Joel H. Slomsky in June 2025 to five years in prison.

Aina later pleaded guilty to cyberstalking, interstate threat to injure reputation, receiving proceeds of extortion, money laundering conspiracy, and wire fraud, and was sentenced by Judge Slomsky in October 2025 to six years in prison.

Nigeria has been actively cooperating with international authorities to combat cybercrime, particularly sextortion cases. In recent years, several Nigerians have been extradited to the US to face charges related to these crimes.

One notable case is that of Samuel Ogoshi and Samson Ogoshi, who were extradited to the US in 2023 for sexually extorting numerous young men and teenage boys, leading to the death of a 17-year-old boy.

They were arrested in Nigeria and later extradited to face charges, including sexual exploitation and conspiracy to distribute child pornography.

Another case is that of Olamide Shanu, who was extradited from the UK to the US in 2025 for his alleged role in a sextortion scheme that obtained at least $2 million from victims.
Shanu and his accomplices posed as women on social media, luring male victims into sending explicit images, and then threatened to release the images unless paid.

Also, just this week, Nigerian authorities, along with 15 other African countries, arrested 651 people suspected of involvement in cybercrime, seizing $45 million in assets.

Source; Vanguard News