A 34-year-old Nigerian man who fled to Nigeria in 2019 has been arrested at a United States airport while attempting to re-enter the country.
Adetunji Abudu, from Lagos, was apprehended on Monday night at Logan International Airport in Boston, Massachusetts. According to the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Rhode Island, he was arriving from Istanbul, Turkey, when he was taken into custody.
Abudu appeared before the U.S. District Court in Rhode Island on October 21, 2026, and was ordered detained pending trial.
He is one of six defendants named in a superseding indictment returned by a federal grand jury in Providence. Prosecutors allege that the group laundered millions of dollars obtained through fraud schemes operated from Nigeria and targeted primarily elderly Americans.
The indictment alleges that victims were deceived through online romance scams, fraudulent sweepstakes, fake rental listings and sham shipping transactions.
Investigators claim that funds collected from victims were funnelled through bank accounts and businesses in Rhode Island, Idaho and other states, with a significant portion later transferred to Nigeria. The group also allegedly used illicit proceeds to purchase vehicles which were shipped overseas.
The Justice Department stated that Abudu fled the United States to Nigeria in 2019 after the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) executed a court-authorized search of his residence in North Providence.
Five of his co-defendants, Dotun Olawale Alonge, Oluwaseyi Akintol, Samson Ikotun, Olabode Shaba, and Oladipup Shodipu, have already pleaded guilty to conspiracy to launder money and received sentences ranging from time served to 42 months imprisonment.
The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney John P. McAdams and was investigated by the FBI, with assistance from the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and police departments in Tallmadge, Ohio and Moscow, Idaho.
The Department of Justice noted that an indictment is merely an accusation and the defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.
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