Defendant Arrested in Nigeria After Three Years on the Run

According to documents filed in this case and statements made in court, Mustapha and his coconspirators gained access to seven different retirement accounts using confidential customer identity information. Mustapha stole this information through his employment as a customer service representative at a Little Falls, N.J., call center for the retirement accounts. After taking over the accounts, Mustapha and his fellow conspirators tried to clean them out by having rollover checks issued, mailed to members of the conspiracy, and deposited into bank accounts they controlled under various aliases in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Georgia and Arizona. Mustapha and his coconspirators ultimately obtained more than $750,000 in checks from the retirement accounts and managed to withdraw substantial proceeds from those checks before one of Mustapha’s co-defendants was arrested. Mustapha fled to Nigeria, where he was arrested March 12, 2011.

The company that sponsored the targeted 401(k) plan accounts has made whole those accounts, with interest, and incurred more than $800,000 in losses as a result.

Mustapha was returned to the United States by the FBI’s Project Welcome Home. The FBI’s Criminal Investigative Division developed Project Welcome Home in an effort to support the apprehension of international fugitives charged with crimes of violence. Project Welcome Home funds the round trip travel of two law enforcement officials and a one-way trip for the fugitive from a foreign country to the United States when repatriation by the host country occurs through deportation or extradition. Since its inception in 2004, over 400 FBI fugitives have been returned to the United States from more than 42 countries to face prosecution.