The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Enugu Zonal Directorate, has arraigned a 26-year-old suspect, Godslove Munachiso Obiwuru, before Justice M. T. Segun-Bello of the Federal High Court, Independence Layout, Enugu, over alleged involvement in a cryptocurrency account takeover linked to a petition by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
Obiwuru was arraigned on a two-count charge bordering on money laundering.
Count one of the charge reads:
“That you, Godslove Munachiso Obiwuru ‘M’ sometime in 2022 within the jurisdiction of this Honourable Court, retained 0.042 Ethereum (digital currency) equivalent to $50 (Fifty United States Dollars) in a Binance wallet account with the address 0xD62C9DA42BDe76a7Be113ABA225456C57320A569 which you know or reasonably ought to know, is a proceed of an unlawful act and thereby committed an offence punishable under Section 20 (a) of the Money Laundering (Prevention and Prohibition) Act, 2022.”
The defendant pleaded “not guilty” to the charges. Following his plea, EFCC counsel, Assistant Superintendent of the EFCC, A.Y. Abdullahi, prayed the court for a trial date and for the defendant to be remanded at the correctional facility.
However, defence counsel, Abel Anih, requested a short adjournment to enable him to file a bail application.
The court subsequently adjourned the matter for the hearing of the bail application and ordered that the defendant be remanded in EFCC custody.
FBI Petition and Investigations
Obiwuru was arrested on August 5, 2025, after the EFCC received a petition from the FBI alleging his involvement in auctioning a cryptocurrency account takeover scheme.
According to the petition, in November 2022, a Coinbase cryptocurrency account belonging to a United States citizen was compromised, leading to the theft of 90,410.126 Gold Retriever Tokens (GLDN), valued at approximately $307,394.00 at the time.
The FBI’s investigation reportedly traced part of the stolen funds to a Binance account linked to Obiwuru.
Further investigations by operatives of the EFCC’s Special Task Force in Enugu revealed that the defendant allegedly received cryptocurrency stolen from two different victims.
