{"id":19520,"date":"2024-07-31T07:53:26","date_gmt":"2024-07-31T06:53:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/?p=19520"},"modified":"2024-07-31T07:53:29","modified_gmt":"2024-07-31T06:53:29","slug":"us-court-sentence-on-three-nigerians-not-recent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/us-court-sentence-on-three-nigerians-not-recent\/","title":{"rendered":"US\u2019 court sentence on three Nigerians, not recent"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Claim: A Facebook user asserts<\/a> that an American court has just sentenced three Nigerians to a joint number of years in prison for running online scams.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Verdict: Contrary to the claim, DUBAWA\u2019s findings show that the sentence has been passed on Nigerian nationals since 2017. The claim is misleading.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Full Text <\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

With the rise of technological advancement and digital innovation, internet fraud has become a disturbing issue, leading to a significant increase in the number of fraudsters<\/a> arrested in Nigeria.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Facebook<\/a> post shared on June 12, 2024, features a photo of three Nigerian citizens alleging that they were recently given weighty sentences in the United States of America for defrauding people of a huge amount of foreign currency. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Part of the caption accompanying the image reads: \u201cA court in Mississippi, USA has sentenced three YORUBA men to 235 years in prison for running online scams that duped people out of tens of millions of dollars.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the time of this report, data available on the post shows that it has amassed about 25 times, with three comments and liked once by users of the application. Checks by DUBAWA show that the claim has gone viral on X. See here<\/a>, here<\/a>, and here<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

DUBAWA resolved to verify the claim\u2019s authenticity as part of its mandate to combat misinformation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Verification <\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

To check the claim’s veracity, we subjected the attached image to a Google Lens search and found results suggesting news stories about the court case. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to a 2017 report by Vanguard<\/a> newspaper, the alleged Nigerian nationals were sentenced to a combined 235 years in prison for running an international fraud network that duped people out of tens of millions of dollars through online scams. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Similarly, other media outlets like Punch<\/a> and Daily Post<\/a> reported the court sentence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Using the available information, we scoured through the official website<\/a> of the United States Department of Justice Office of Public Affairs. We found a press release about the development published on May 25, 2017. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThree Nigerian nationals, who were extradited from South Africa to the Southern District of Mississippi in July 2015, were sentenced to prison this week for their roles in a large-scale international fraud network,\u201d the statement reads in part.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Conclusion <\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Evidence gathered by DUBAWA reveals that the news of the court sentence is old, contradicting the claim’s recency as alleged by the Facebook user. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Claim: A Facebook user asserts that an American court has just sentenced three Nigerians to a joint number of years in prison for running online scams.\u00a0 Verdict: Contrary to the claim, DUBAWA\u2019s findings show that the sentence has been passed on Nigerian nationals since 2017. The claim is misleading.\u00a0 Full Text  With the rise of technological advancement and digital innovation, internet fraud has become a disturbing issue, leading to a significant increase in the number of fraudsters arrested in Nigeria. A Facebook post shared on June 12, 2024, features a photo of three Nigerian citizens alleging that they were recently given weighty sentences in the United States of America for defrauding people of a huge amount of foreign currency.  Part of the caption accompanying the image reads: \u201cA court in Mississippi, USA has sentenced three YORUBA men to 235 years in prison for running online scams that duped people out of tens of millions of dollars.\u201d  At the time of this report, data available on the post shows that it has amassed about 25 times, with three comments and liked once by users of the application. Checks by DUBAWA show that the claim has gone viral on X. See here, here, and here.  DUBAWA resolved to verify the claim\u2019s authenticity as part of its mandate to combat misinformation. Verification  To check the claim’s veracity, we subjected the attached image to a Google Lens search and found results suggesting news stories about the court case.  According to a 2017 report by Vanguard newspaper, the alleged Nigerian nationals were sentenced to a combined 235 years in prison for running an international fraud network that duped people out of tens of millions of dollars through online scams.  Similarly, other media outlets like Punch and Daily Post reported the court sentence. Using the available information, we scoured through the official website of the United States Department of Justice Office of Public Affairs. We found a press release about the development published on May 25, 2017.  \u201cThree Nigerian nationals, who were extradited from South Africa to the Southern District of Mississippi in July 2015, were sentenced to prison this week for their roles in a large-scale international fraud network,\u201d the statement reads in part. Conclusion  Evidence gathered by DUBAWA reveals that the news of the court sentence is old, contradicting the claim’s recency as alleged by the Facebook user. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19521,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"hannibal_claim_source":"","hannibal_source_label":"","hannibal_card_color":"blue","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_wpscppro_dont_share_socialmedia":false,"_wpscppro_custom_social_share_image":0,"_facebook_share_type":"default","_twitter_share_type":"default","_linkedin_share_type":"default","_pinterest_share_type":"default","_linkedin_share_type_page":"","_instagram_share_type":"default","_medium_share_type":"","_threads_share_type":"","_google_business_share_type":"","_bluesky_share_type":"","_mastodon_share_type":"","_selected_social_profile":[],"_wpsp_enable_custom_social_template":false,"_wpsp_social_scheduling":{"enabled":false,"datetime":null,"platforms":[],"status":"template_only","dateOption":"today","timeOption":"now","customDays":"","customHours":"","customDate":"","customTime":"","schedulingType":"absolute"},"_wpsp_active_default_template":true},"categories":[1571,120,437,3812,3815],"tags":[],"verdict":[],"ppma_author":[3803],"class_list":["post-19520","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fact-check","category-economy","category-facebook-checks","category-headline","category-homepage"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8R6dE-54Q","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"authors":[{"term_id":3803,"user_id":0,"is_guest":1,"slug":"mohammed-taoheed","display_name":"Mohammed Taoheed","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&r=g","author_category":"","user_url":"","last_name":"","first_name":"","job_title":"","description":""}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/hacker.png?fit=697%2C465&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19520","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19520"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19520\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19522,"href":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19520\/revisions\/19522"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19521"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19520"},{"taxonomy":"verdict","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/verdict?post=19520"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=19520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}