Samuel Kwadwo Osei, a Ghanaian purported to be the leader of a fraudulent enterprise in the United States, has been arrested by the FBI together with a Nigerian IT expert Sapphire Egemasi and other accomplices for allegedly scamming U.S. government agencies of millions of dollars.
The suspects according to information gathered were taken into custody on April 10, 2025.
The group allegedly targeted agencies across the US, and it includes the Kentucky local government. Their modus operandi is the usage of phishing websites to collect employee information and divert public monies into fictitious accounts. Their activities has gone on for a while between September 2021 and February 2023.
Egemasi, the Nigerian IT expert popularly referred to as the Tech Queen was hired purposely to create fake websites that can be used to steal login credentials used to siphon public funds. She also facilitated the transfer of funds managed by the scammers.
Investigators report that the group diverted $965,000 and $330,000—both stolen from the city of Kentucky—into accounts at PNC Bank and Bank of America in 2022.
The face a jail term of up 20 years each if convicted, along with the possibility of deportation back to Ghana and Nigeria after the completion of their term.
There is a strong possibility that Egemasi, who had previously resided in Cambridge, United Kingdom, met her other conspirators in Ghana many years ago. After some time, she became the tech specialist for the syndicate, which had operations in both the United States and Nigeria. In an effort to conceal the origin of her income, she made the claim that she had completed internships at corporations such as BP, H&M, and Zara.
