• FBI Arrests Forbes’ Celebrated Nigerian Young Billionaire, Obinwanne Okeke “Invictus” Over $12 Million Fraud In US.
• Nigerians react on Twitter over alleged arrest of Obinwanne Okeke.
• Obinwanne Okeke Biography.

For quite a while, Obinwanne Okeke, chairman ‘Invictus Group’ was the representative of the young Nigerian energy and entrepreneurial success.

He was commended by Forbes Africa in 2016 as one of Africa’s Under 30s Most Promising Entrepreneurs. He even made the front of the magazine that normally lauds the rich and the successful.

In December 2018, he was a guest speaker at TEDxYaba2018. He talked about “the DNA of the Nigerian entrepreneur“. His suggestion will move the most laid-back individual from his age:

“The success of a business is largely dependent on you as the owner.If there is any part of you that appears to be a limitation, don’t let it hold you back.Take deliberate steps to develop yourself to match your weakness, growth is continuous.Associate with people that will inspire you and are ready to support you.Develop these traits in the right proportion.Don’t be afraid to fail, be afraid not to try. Go for it.Start Something Today!”

Until yesterday, no one ever suspected Okeke was a fraud.

In any case, the mystery was let out by Instablog’s world breaking post about the sworn statement of FBI specialist, Marshall Ward that showed that Okeke has only been showing an exterior of business achievement. He is much the same as all the Yahoo Boys that EFCC chases down the streets, except that he practices his own at another level, a lot higher level, phishing, e-masquerading and stealing millions of dollars from several companies.

In his filing, Marshall Ward deposed, after painstaking investigation that Okeke, defrauded UNATRAC Holding Limited, the export sales office for Caterpillar heavy industrial and farm equipment in the UK, of a staggering $11million.

The FBI investigation followed a complaint by the CFO of UNATRAC that his email had been undermined by means of phishing and spoofing and that his email account had been accessed illegally 464 times between April 6 and April April 20, 2018, mostly from Internet protocol addresses in Nigeria. Through the hijacked account wire transfers running into millions of dollars were made by UNATRAC to fictitious accounts controlled by Okeke.

Further examination found that Okeke correspondingly fleeced Red Wing Shoe Company based in Minnessota of $108,470 also last year. There were other victims in Indiana, California, Alabama, Wisconsin, the investigator found.

Okeke was arrested while visiting the United States this month.

Nigerians react on Twitter over alleged arrest of Obinwanne Okeke

The news has been the most stunning in Nigeria for quite a while, with Twitterati asking why the warnings were not seen by everybody up to this point.

Giditraffic posted a video of a birthday bash by Okeke in South Africa last November, where he was soaked with costly champagne.

“@crisscrosafrica: Invictus Obi having a champagne bath on his birthday at Club Hush, in South Africa. How did forbes/EFCC miss all the red flags? pic.twitter.com/c4ACmCIZWL

— GIDITRAFFIC (@Gidi_Traffic) August 17, 2019

“AAshey yahoo yahoo lomo naa… Ogbeni invictus obi, forbes list was getting boring, so he jumped to FBI list”, wrote Ayodeji @datmastermind80 on Twitter.

Olalekan Adigun wrote;

“This Invictus Obi’s story clearly shows that Yahoo Yahoo boys can operate anywhere- even wearing suits. That’s why I hardly believe all these influencers giving Tedx Talks if I can’t trace their sources of income. Most of them do Yahoo as a major side hustle. Run your own race!”.

Henry Okelue said:

“The apprehension of Invictus Obi is hopefully a notification to the gutter mouthed “rich” businessman/men with obviously dubious “wealth” on here. Your time is near.”

Obinwanne’s Biography

Okeke was born on November 9, 1987, in Ukpor town, 790 kilometers from Nigeria’s capital, Abuja, as the seventeenth offspring of a polygamous dad.

He went to boarding school aged 10, lost his father at 16 and moved from one relative to another. He named his company Invictus after one of Nelson Mandela’s favourite poems, by William Ernest Henley, about the undefeated and unconquerable soul of a hard worker, from an impoverished background, who will not give up.

His company, the site claimed, is into construction, agriculture, oil and gas, telecoms and real estate. He has 28 permanent and 100 part-time employees across nine companies. We now know better.

As a teenager, Okeke took courses in business management as well as obtained a diploma as a computer technician. He later moved to Australia to study, where he said he “did all kinds of jobs just to survive.”

He started an events/entertainment company for students called Invictus media and also interned at a poverty alleviation NGO in the country.

While in Australia, he founded Literacy Africa International to raise “awareness about literacy problem among children in Africa.”

He also sourced for donors of used children books across Australia and shipped them to disadvantaged kids across Africa.

He saved some money, came back to Nigeria, and invested it in his business.

In 2017, Invictus Group was named as Africa’s Most Innovative Investment Company of the Year by African Brand Congress.

The same year, Obinwanne was nominated in the Young African Business Leader (West Africa) category for the All Africa Business Leaders Awards ( AABLA).

The post Obinwanne Okeke The Advance Yahoo Boy, Busted By FBI appeared first on NigeriansCitizens.