A Nigerian national has been recognized by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) as the mastermind behind an advanced cyber fraud scheme, commonly known as a Yahoo scam, that reportedly diverted over ₦460 million designated for President Donald Trump's 2025 inauguration.
A civil forfeiture filing in a U.S. District Court alleges that Ehirmen Aigbokhan orchestrated a cryptocurrency scam from Lagos, Nigeria. This operation allegedly occurred just weeks prior to the planned inauguration of Trump and Vance on January 20, 2025.
Authorities reported that the scheme utilized a prevalent yet effective tactic called Business Email Compromise (BEC). This technique involves impersonating legitimate email accounts to trick victims into transferring funds. A formal arrest warrant has been sought for Mr. Aigbokhan, who also faces charges of wire fraud and money laundering.
The Art of Misleading with Specifics
Court documents reveal that the fraudsters set up email addresses very similar to those used by members of the Trump-Vance Inaugural Committee.
One example of a fake email—@t47lnaugural.com—was almost identical to the real domain used by committee co-chair Steve Witkoff, whose legitimate address ends with @t47inaugural.com. The scam took advantage of a subtle change: replacing an uppercase "I" with a lowercase "l."
This small change resulted in a significant financial loss when, on December 26, 2024, a donor unintentionally transferred 250,300 USDT.ETH—a cryptocurrency linked to the U.S. dollar and operating on the Ethereum blockchain. At that moment, these funds were worth over ₦400 million.
After the transaction was finalized, 215,000 USDT.ETH in cryptocurrency was swiftly distributed across multiple digital wallets, seemingly to conceal its origin.
The FBI identified the suspicious activity and collaborated with crypto platform Tether to freeze the accounts in question on December 31, 2024, effectively halting any further movement of funds.
Further investigations directed federal agents to Nigeria, where IP logs indicated that Lagos was the center of operations. A significant breakthrough linked the fraudulent cryptocurrency wallet to a Binance.com account registered by Mr. Aigbokhan in October 2024.
That account, which had been notably inactive until it received the scam proceeds, became crucial evidence linking him to the fraud. Investigators later verified that this same wallet was used to channel parts of the stolen funds.
In its ongoing investigation, the U.S. Department of Justice has seized two cryptocurrency balances: 20,017 USDT.ETH from Aigbokhan's wallet and an additional 20,336 USDT.ETH from a related wallet—amounting to over ₦60 million based on black market valuation.
Rick Blaylock Jr., Assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, is requesting court approval for the forfeiture of the recovered digital assets.
The FBI has confirmed that efforts are in progress to locate Aigbokhan and any accomplices. While no official statement has been made about diplomatic coordination or extradition processes, U.S. officials indicate that this case highlights the growing threat of international cybercriminals targeting high-profile events.
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