Nigeria, June 25 -- A Nigerian national, Franklin Nwadialo, has been sentenced to five years in prison in the United States for orchestrating a long-running online romance scam that defrauded victims of more than $3.5 million.

The sentence was handed down on Tuesday by the US District Court in Tacoma, Washington, according to a statement shared by the US authorities and posted on the official X account of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) on Wednesday.

Mr Nwadialo, 42, was convicted on 14 counts of wire fraud linked to a romance fraud scheme that targeted vulnerable individuals, many of them elderly, widowed or divorced.

He was arrested in Texas in 2024 upon his arrival in the United States after being indicted in December 2...