(DDM) – The Federal Bureau of Investigation has named Nigerian entrepreneur and Forbes-listed tech founder, Izunna Okonkwo, as a key person of interest in a sprawling insider-trading and money-laundering scheme that allegedly generated $41 million in illegal profit over a five-year period.
DDM gathered that the allegation centres on an illicit network involving confidential corporate information, rapid stock purchases before major acquisitions, and a profit-sharing arrangement that prosecutors say was deliberately concealed.
Mr Okonkwo, a Stanford-trained co-founder of the Nigerian fintech company Pastel, allegedly received privileged financial intelligence through an illegal pipeline created by U.S. investment banker Gyunho Justin Kim and his American-Pakistani friend, Saad Shoukat.
The FBI said Mr Kim, who worked in Citibank’s investment group in San Francisco, had access to confidential data involving upcoming billion-dollar mergers and acquisitions.
Investigators claim that Mr Kim routinely leaked those secrets to Mr Shoukat, who in turn passed them to Mr Okonkwo and other unnamed traders.
Court documents explained that Mr Kim and Mr Shoukat became friends in 2018 during internships at multinational corporations, a relationship that later transformed into a criminal collaboration.
FBI officials said the information pipeline enabled the group to anticipate major corporate takeovers, buy stocks quietly, and cash out huge profits once the acquisitions were publicly announced.
The criminal complaint filed on November 24 before the U.S. District Court for New Jersey revealed that Mr Okonkwo, now 30, allegedly communicated with Mr Shoukat through encrypted apps when advised to buy certain securities.
The filing alleged that Mr Okonkwo even suggested helping Mr Kim secure new employment, despite knowing the banker was the source of repeated illegal profit.
Investigators disclosed that the group profited heavily from major deals including Gilead’s $21 billion acquisition of Immunomedics in 2020, from which they collectively earned $4.9 million.
The FBI traced multiple logins to Mr Okonkwo’s brokerage account, linking them to a London residence associated with him, and the same location also appeared in login attempts on Mr Shoukat’s trading account.
Agents further uncovered intercepted messages confirming discussions between Mr Okonkwo and an acquaintance about buying Immunomedics shares in August 2020.
Documents show he allegedly earned $2.3 million from the Immunomedics acquisition, while one of his relatives earned $465,299 from related trades.
In 2022, when Amgen acquired Five Prime Therapeutics, Mr Okonkwo reportedly opened a brokerage account a day after the information leak, purchasing shares at $15 and later making $166,000.
He allegedly earned $370,000 from GSK’s purchase of Sierra Oncology, and his relative made $41,000 from similar trades.
Pfizer’s $5.4 billion acquisition of Global Blood Therapeutics also allegedly yielded him $3.5 million, while Mr Shoukat reportedly made another $5 million from the same deal.
FBI records noted that days after those earnings, Pastel, his tech company operating from Yaba, Lagos and Atlanta, announced a $5.5 million seed-funding round.
Prosecutors said the final set of alleged profits include $4.7 million from Biogen’s takeover of Reata in July 2023 and $2.9 million from AbbVie’s acquisition of Immunogen in November 2023.
Federal authorities told Magistrate Judge Michael Hammer that combined profit from the network exceeded $41 million.
Mr Kim is already facing six federal charges, including insider trading, wire fraud, and money laundering.
It remains unclear whether Mr Okonkwo has been arrested, but filings identify him as a dual Nigerian-American citizen with operations in Atlanta and Nigeria.