They were sentenced in the Plettenberg Bay Regional Court on Wednesday, September 10, 22025.
A court in South Africa has jailed two Nigerian women and a South African woman for running a brothel in George in the Western Cape province, South Africa.
The brothel was used for trafficking of girls.
The Nigerians, Patience Precious Abudu, 35, Success Egabor, 42, and South African Nontobeko Mathunjwa, 36, faced several charges, including trafficking in persons, running a brothel, and living off the proceeds of prostitution.
The trio pleaded guilty to the charges preferred against them.
They were sentenced in the Plettenberg Bay Regional Court on Wednesday, September 10, 22025.
This follows their arrest by members of the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (known as Hawks).
The provincial spokesperson for the Hawks, Warrant Officer Zinzi Hani said the women were arrested between December 2023 and May 2024 by members of the Hawks’ Economic Protected Resources team (EPR) in collaboration with the Department of Home Affairs for their involvement in trafficking in persons.
“It is reported that on December 16, 2023, two young girls were rescued from a brothel located in a complex in George. Upon their rescue, it was discovered that they were trafficked into South Africa. The three were then arrested and have been in custody since their arrest, up until they were sentenced,” Hani said.
The trafficked girls are Nigerian nationals.
Abudu was sentenced to a fine of R6,000 or three years imprisonment for living off earnings of prostitution, a fine of R6,000 or three years imprisonment for running a brothel, and a fine of R1,000 or six months imprisonment for contravening the Immigration Act. She was further ordered to compensate each victim R20,000.
Rgabor was sentenced to a fine of R6,000 or three years imprisonment for living off earnings of prostitution, a fine of R6,000 or three years imprisonment for running a brothel, and a fine of R1,000 or six months imprisonment for contravening the Immigration Act.
She was further ordered to pay a compensation fee to the first victim in the amount of R17,000.
Mathunjwa was sentenced to a fine of R6,000 or three years imprisonment for living off earnings of prostitution, a fine of R1,000 or six months imprisonment for running a brothel, and was ordered to pay a compensation fee to the first victim in the amount of R18,000.
The charges of trafficking in persons, debt bondage, concealment or confiscation of travel documents, benefitting from the services of a victim of trafficking, procuring prostitution, renting a structure to practice prostitution were withdrawn against the trio.
The court also ordered that Abudu and Egabor be deported back to their country
US Arrest Convicted Nigerian In Illegal Migrants Crackdown
The United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency has arrested a previously convicted Nigerian, Rotimi Oladimeji, in an operation targeting illegal immigrants across the country.
The ICE, in a statement shared on its X page on Monday, disclosed that Oladimeji was ordered to pay $1.1 million in restitution before he was arrested.
The terse statement read, “Nigerian criminal alien Rotimi Oladimeji’s criminal history includes mail and wire fraud. He was ordered to pay $1.1M+ in restitution before ICE New Orleans arrested him.”
PUNCH Metro recalled that Oladimeji was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment by a US District Court in December 2023 for fraud.
He was convicted of aiding other scammers in Nigeria to defraud a woman “who thought she was in an online romance with a veterinarian and animal behaviourist living in St. Louis,” according to the US Department of Justice.
The US DoJ had, in 2022, added that “in October of 2019, Oladimeji claimed the veterinarian was going to Dubai, then said he wouldn’t be allowed to leave unless she sent money. They continued to request the victim for four and five-figure sums, court records show.”
“In all, the victim lost nearly $1.17 million. Oladimeji received 20% of the funds he generated. As money mules who transmitted the fraudulent proceeds to people like Oladimeji, Akinrinmade and Adesanya received 20 per cent of the funds they forwarded. The remaining amount went to scammers in Nigeria,” it added.
Following his guilty plea in 2022, he was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment and ordered to pay $1.1m in restitution.
Similarly, Oladimeji was, at the time of his conviction, placed on deportation, but he has since remained in the US since completing his jail term.
Oladimeji’s arrest joined the thousands of illegal migrants who have been arrested by the ICE following President Donald Trump’s order on illegal and criminal migrant clampdown.
Vehicle theft: Three Nigerians jailed 96 years in Ghana
The Atasemanso Circuit Court sitting in Ghana has sentenced three Nigerians, Francis Friday, Linus Agwazie, and Russell Ekenze, to a combined jail term of 96 years for their involvement in car theft within the Kumasi Metropolis of the country.
PUNCH Metro learnt this from a statement signed by the Head of the Public Affairs Unit of the Ashanti Regional Police, Godwin Ahianyo, and obtained on Tuesday.
This is coming amidst a recent protest by Ghanaians over the involvement of Nigerians within the country in alleged criminal activities.
According to Ahianyo, the trio was arrested on June 20 following suspicions that they were involved in targeting and stealing parked vehicles.
According to the spokesperson, the trio were subsequently arraigned before the circuit court on July 22, but only Ekenze pleaded guilty to the charges pressed against him.
Ahianyo stated, “On July 22, 2025, the suspects Francis Friday, Linus Agwazie, and Russell Ekenze were arraigned before the Atasemanso Circuit Court.
“During proceedings, Russell Ekenze pleaded guilty to the charges and was immediately convicted and sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment in hard labour. The other two suspects, Francis Friday and Linus Agwazie, pleaded not guilty.
“Subsequently, on July 23, 2025, the cases of Francis Friday and Linus Agwazie were heard at Circuit Court 3, where both were found guilty and each was sentenced to 8 years’ imprisonment on two counts, with the sentences to run concurrently.”
He added that the three suspects were further arraigned on additional charges in another court and were each sentenced to 20 years.
“On the same day, Circuit Court 1 also heard additional charges against all three suspects, resulting in 20-year IHL sentences each, also on two counts, and to run concurrently.
“Finally, on July 24, 2025, Russell Ekenze was further convicted at Circuit Court 2, receiving an additional 10-year IHL sentence on two counts, to run concurrently with his existing sentence.
“All three convicts, Francis Friday, Linus Agwazie, and Russell Ekenze, are currently serving their sentences at the Kumasi Central Prison,” the statement read.
Some Nigerians have been reported of allegedly committing crimes in Ghana in recent times.
In May, a Tarkwa Circuit Court sentenced a 32-year-old Nigerian woman, Patience Gold, to 20 years in prison for trafficking four young women, including one living with HIV for forced prostitution.
Similarly, in July, 50 Nigerians were arrested by the Ghana Immigration Service for alleged involvement in cyberfraud and human trafficking.
The suspects and the landlord of the property where the arrests took place were apprehended during a coordinated security operation at McCarthy Hills in the Ga South Municipality of Accra.
While the government of Ghana has continued to clamp down on foreign criminals, the involvement of Nigerians in crimes in foreign countries has continued to take a toll on the image of the country.
Johnson IdowuJohnson, an avid reader, has over four years experience in journalism covering education, politics and Metro.
US Court Convicts Ex-NNPC Official Over Bribery Scandal
Information reaching the OsunReporters News confirmed that Mr Okoronkwo, 58, also known as “Pollie,” was found guilty of three counts of money laundering, one count of tax evasion, and one count of obstruction of justice.
According to reports, Paulinus Okoronkwo, a Nigerian lawyer based in Los Angeles and Ex-NNPC official
A United States judge has found Paulinus Okoronkwo, a Nigerian lawyer based in Los Angeles, guilty of receiving a $2.1 million bribe from a Chinese oil company to secure drilling rights in Nigeria.
Reports further revealed that he accepted the bribe while serving as an official of the state-owned oil firm, NNPC, now NNPC Ltd.
Mr Okoronkwo, 58, also known as “Pollie,” was found guilty of three counts of money laundering, one count of tax evasion, and one count of obstruction of justice.
The verdict was delivered on 29 August after a four-day trial in California.
Prosecutors told the court that Mr Okoronkwo, a dual US-Nigerian citizen, collected the payment in 2015 while serving as general manager of the upstream division of the NNPC. In that role, he was a public officer and owed a duty of loyalty to Nigeria’s government, the court said.
In October 2015, Addax Petroleum, a Swiss subsidiary of Chinese state-owned oil giant Sinopec, paid a bribe to Mr Okoronkwo in exchange for his influence in securing more favourable financial terms relating to its crude oil drilling in Nigeria, the court ruled.
Evidence showed that Addax wired the funds to a trust account in the name of Mr Okoronkwo’s Los Angeles law firm under the guise of legal consultancy.
Prosecutors described the agreement as a sham designed to cover up the bribe.
Addax was seeking to protect its lucrative drilling rights in Nigeria, which prosecutors said were worth billions of dollars.
In an attempt to cover up the bribe, Addax fired executives who raised concerns about the payment’s legitimacy and lied about the transaction during an audit, the court said.
Investigators revealed that in November 2017, Mr Okoronkwo used $983,200 of the illegally obtained funds to make a down payment on a house in Valencia, California, and failed to declare the money on his 2015 tax returns.
Then in 2022, he lied to federal agents, insisting the money was client funds and not his income.
US District Judge John F. Walter has scheduled 1 December for a sentencing hearing, at which time Mr Okoronkwo will face a statutory maximum sentence of 10 years in federal prison for each money laundering count, up to 10 years in federal prison for the obstruction of justice count, and up to five years in federal prison for the tax evasion count.
Mr Okoronkwo is currently released on a $50,000 bond.
The FBI and IRS Criminal Investigation led the investigation, with support from the Justice Department’s Office of International Affairs.
The case is being prosecuted by the Assistant US Attorneys Alexander Schwab, Deputy Chief of the Criminal Division Nisha Chandran of the Major