Nigerian woman charged with Wisconsin wire fraud scheme

MADISON, Wis. — A federal grand jury in the Western District of Wisconsin returned an indictment Thursday charging a Nigerian woman allegedly involved in a wire fraud scheme that defrauded victims via Internet dating services. 

These charges resulted from an investigation conducted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), and the Price County (Wisconsin) Sheriff’s Office.

Sally Iriri, 32, a Nigerian national who was living in Chicago, is charged in a three-count indictment with wire fraud.  The indictment alleges that from October 2013 to March 2015 she and others not named in the indictment devised a fraud scheme in which they targeted victims by creating fake profiles on Internet dating services.

Iriri and others allegedly defrauded the victims in a variety of ways, including getting victims to pay so-called “inheritance taxes” on nonexistent inheritances, and getting victims to send money in exchange for checks that were fraudulent.

The indictment alleges that, at the direction of Iriri and others, the fraud victims wire-transferred money into a bank account in Iriri’s name.  The three wire fraud counts in the indictment allege interstate wire communications between a bank account in Park Falls, Wisconsin, and a bank account in New York City, in the amounts of $8,300, $10,875 and $4,240.

If convicted, Iriri faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in federal prison on each count.  Assistant U.S. Attorney Meredith Duchemin, Western District of Wisconsin, is prosecuting this case.

The public is reminded that an indictment contains only charges and is not evidence of guilt.  The defendant is presumed innocent and is entitled to a fair trial at which the government has the burden of proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.