WASHINGTON — Two Nigerian men have been extradited to the United States to face federal charges over separate financially motivated sextortion schemes involving minors that prosecutors say resulted in the deaths of teenagers in Mississippi and North Carolina.
Adebola Festus Adekunle, 26, and Mudasiru Afeez Olawale, 24, were transferred to U.S. custody on Aug. 27 after being arrested in Nigeria in 2023, the Justice Department announced Friday. FBI agents traveled to Nigeria to take the defendants into custody with assistance from Nigerian authorities.
The cases are separate but are both part of Operation Artemis, an FBI effort targeting financially motivated sextortion networks operating from Nigeria.
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Adekunle, of Lagos, appeared in federal court in Oxford, Mississippi, on Friday.
Federal prosecutors accuse him of financially exploiting a Mississippi minor in a case that allegedly resulted in the teenager’s death. He faces charges including sexual exploitation of a minor resulting in death, coercion and enticement of a minor, and interstate threats with intent to extort.
The Mississippi teenager was identified by authorities as Walker Montgomery.
Montgomery was 16 when he died by suicide in 2022 after being targeted in an alleged online sextortion scheme. According to local reporting, the person targeting him allegedly posed as someone else online, obtained sexually explicit material, and later demanded money while threatening to distribute it.
Adekunle was arrested in Nigeria in August 2023 following an investigation involving the FBI, Mississippi Attorney General’s Office, Lowndes County Sheriff’s Office, and Starkville Police Department.
If convicted of the child exploitation resulting in death charge, Adekunle faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 30 years in federal prison. His charges carry a maximum possible sentence of life imprisonment.
The second defendant, Olawale, appeared Friday before U.S. Magistrate Judge L. Patrick Auld in Greensboro, North Carolina.
Prosecutors say his case involves the financially motivated sextortion of two minors, including one case that resulted in the death of a teenager.
Olawale was indicted in August 2023 on offenses involving sexual exploitation of minors resulting in death, enticement of minors, interstate threatening communications, and distribution of child pornography, according to the Justice Department.
He was arrested in Nigeria on Aug. 9, 2023.
Olawale also faces a maximum possible sentence of life imprisonment, while a child exploitation resulting in death charge carries a mandatory minimum sentence of 30 years if he is convicted.
Both defendants are presumed innocent unless proven guilty.
FBI Targets Financial Sextortion Networks
The extraditions are part of a wider U.S. effort to pursue financially motivated sextortion schemes targeting American minors from overseas.
The FBI says perpetrators frequently approach children through social media, messaging apps, online games and other digital services while pretending to be someone of a similar age or someone the victim might trust.
After obtaining sexually explicit material, perpetrators may threaten to distribute it to a victim’s family, friends or classmates unless money is paid.
The bureau says teenage boys between 14 and 17 are particularly common targets and that an alarming number of suicides have been identified among male victims of financially motivated sextortion.
Operation Artemis has focused specifically on networks operating from Nigeria. The FBI deployed agents, analysts and forensic specialists to the country as part of its investigation.
The Justice Department says schemes targeted by the operation have been directly linked to dozens of American teen deaths by suicide.
The extradition of Adekunle and Olawale involved the Justice Department’s Office of International Affairs, FBI personnel in Nigeria and agents from field offices in Mississippi and North Carolina.
Nigerian authorities, including the country’s Federal Ministry of Justice and Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, assisted U.S. investigators.
The two prosecutions will now proceed separately in federal courts in Mississippi and North Carolina.
