The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has filed a civil forfeiture complaint seeking to seize property belonging to Lagos-based fraudster, Ehiremen Aigbokhan, for allegedly stealing over ₦460 million in funds intended for U.S. President Donald Trump’s 2025 inauguration.
The FBI is also pursuing an arrest warrant for Mr. Aigbokhan in connection with a cryptocurrency fraud and money laundering scheme that defrauded a donor who intended to contribute to the Trump-Vance Inaugural Committee.
According to legal filings seen by Peoples Gazette, Mr. Aigbokhan and his associates orchestrated a sophisticated Business Email Compromise (BEC) scheme to deceive their victim into transferring funds to cryptocurrency accounts under their control.
In the weeks leading up to the inauguration on January 20, 2025, the FBI reported that the fraudsters created several fake email addresses designed to mimic legitimate ones used for the ceremony. They sent these emails to multiple targets, soliciting donations for Mr. Trump’s swearing-in.
On December 26, 2024, one of these fake emails—using the domain @t47lnaugural.com—was sent to a victim to impersonate @t47inaugural.com, the official email of Trump-Vance Inaugural Committee co-chair Steve Wiktoff.
The victim, misled by the scheme, transferred 250,300 USDT.ETH (valued at over ₦400 million at the current black market rate) to the fraudsters’ account.
Within days of receiving the funds, the criminals quickly dispersed 215,000 USDT.ETH across several crypto wallets. Before further transactions could occur, the FBI alerted crypto operator Tether, which voluntarily froze the accounts on December 31, according to court documents.
The FBI’s investigation traced the crypto address linked to the scheme back to Mr. Aigbokhan in Lagos. Further findings showed that part of the stolen funds was moved to a Binance.com account registered to Mr. Aigbokhan in October 2024. The account had no prior activity before the illicit transfers.
Digital forensics linked the fraudulent email accounts and crypto transactions to Nigeria, with IP data consistently pointing to Lagos and confirming Mr. Aigbokhan’s involvement.
The agency said it seized 20,017 USDT.ETH from Mr. Aigbokhan’s wallet and another 20,336 USDT.ETH from wallet address 0xC7bdBA7ffB126F68E8454C—amounting to over ₦60 million at the black market rate. Rick Blaylock Jr, Assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, has asked the court to order the forfeiture of the funds.
