The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has extradited a woman Florence Onyegbu to the United States of America about 12 years after she fled the country to avoid serving a 46-month jail term for healthcare fraud.
The anti-graft agency coordinated her extradition following a request by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
EFCC spokesperson Wilson Uwujaren said the commission, on March 23, 2023, handed over Onyegbu to the FBI.
Justice Z.B. Abubakar of the Federal High Court sitting in Abuja had on December 2, 2022 granted order to extradite her to the US where she was arrested on February 12, 2011.
Onyegbu was subsequently sentenced to 46 months imprisonment following a guilty plea over the violation of the US law bordering on the offer and payment of illegal remuneration in a health care matter.
She was ordered to report for service of her sentence on April 4, 2011, but she failed to surrender on that date.
Consequently, she was further charged with failure to surrender for service of sentence in violation of US law on March 4, 2013.
EFCC said Onyegbu changed her name from Florence E. Onyegbu to Janet Boi in an attempt to remain hidden and returned to Nigeria.
However, she ran out of luck when operatives of the EFCC swooped in on her at her residence in the Ojodu area of Lagos on February 21, 2022.
Upon her arrest, a national identity card with the name Janet Boi as well as a Texas driver’s license with the name Florence Onyegbu were found on her and the process of her extradition began.
