32-year-old Nigerian, Olamide Shanu has been accused of a blackmail scandal by the United States Secret Service. Also, his Binance account has been confiscated because it was allegedly used to launder proceeds from a dubious scheme.
According to court filings that were obtained by Nigerian publication, Peoples Gazette, Olamide Shanu is facing 13 indictment charges in the United States. He reportedly blackmailed a minor in the United States to send funds to him, having dubiously obtained explicit pictures from him.
These range from conspiracy to commit wire fraud, aggravated identity theft, conspiracy to commit extortion, interstate communication with intent to commit extortion to fraud and money laundering forfeiture that would have him surrender assets acquired fraudulently to the United States government.
Read also: Cross River governorship candidate Wilfred Bonse arrested in connection with Patricia hack
Blackmail scandal allegations
According to the report, Olamide set up a fake Snapchat profile where he was transacting nude images with his victim. Later on, Olamide will threaten the victim to send him funds or risk the nude pictures being shared all over the internet. In the end, Olamide allegedly obtained a total of $1000 with false identity and pretence.
Unfortunately for him, the victim reported the incident to his mother who notified the authorities. He eventually blocked Olamide’s fake account but Olamide Shanu later added him with another fake account and continued the blackmail.
Ultimately, authorities were able to link the IP addresses of Olamide Shanu’s two fake Snapchat accounts to the same location in Lagos, Nigeria.
According to the prosecutors, further findings also disclosed that Olamide had other underage victims from whom he had fleeced a total of $1500 and he was accused of using the victim’s Venmo account to receive illicit proceeds.
Investigations showed that payments from this Venmo account were forwarded into a crypto wallet that has been traced to Shanu after authorities presented a warrant to Binance to obtain his wallet information.
How Olamide Shanu was identified through a Binance account
Being a centralised crypto exchange with a Know-Your-Customer (KYC) feature, Binance has information about its users. With the wallet address that was used to receive money from the Venmo account, the United States Secret Service was able to link the address to Olamide Shanu’s Binance account.
Having gotten the KYC information of the account on legal request, the investigators found Shanu’s Nigerian passport linked to the account as its owner and [email protected] listed as his email.
Similarly, the IP address used in accessing the Binance account was consistent with the one of Snapchat profiles Olamide Shanu used during his blackmail campaign, further proving he is linked to both accounts and answerable to the allegations.
According to the report, investigations reveal that Olamide Shanu’s account, which had 0 BTC balance at the time of trial, has received over 84.66478598 Bitcoin (approximately $2.6 million) and has withdrawn approximately $2.5 million in Bitcoin over three years.
Additionally, Investigators obtained a warrant for the Gmail account and discovered that various photographs on Shanu’s Google account matched the photograph on his passport linked to his Binance account.
What is next?
Although the details are already in the public domain, it is still unclear whether Olamide Shanu is aware of the allegations levied against him by the US authorities. According to the report, efforts to reach him via the telephone line found by investigators on his Binance account were unsuccessful.
If found guilty on the 13 indictment charges which range from conspiracy to commit wire fraud, aggravated identity theft, conspiracy to commit extortion, interstate communication with intent to commit extortion to fraud and money laundering forfeiture, he would have to surrender assets acquired fraudulently through his illicit activities to the United States government.
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