FBI Declares 46-Year-Old Nigerian Woman Wanted, Offers $5,000 Reward
- The FBI declared 46-year-old Nigerian woman Emuobosan Emmanuella Hall wanted after she failed to report to prison to serve an eight-year sentence for romance scam fraud
- Hall's GPS ankle monitor stopped transmitting at Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson airport on March 24, 2026, a day before her prison reporting deadline
- A federal grand jury in New Orleans indicted Hall on October 23, 2026, and the FBI is offering a $5,000 (approximately N6.7 million) reward for information leading to her arrest
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The FBI has declared a 46-year-old Nigerian woman wanted and is offering a $5,000 (approximately N6.7 million) reward for anyone with information on her whereabouts after she vanished before reporting to federal prison to begin serving her sentence.
A federal grand jury in New Orleans indicted Emuobosan Emmanuella Hall, a Nigerian citizen and US permanent resident based in Atlanta, Georgia, on October 23, 2026, for failing to report to the Bureau of Prisons as ordered.
Source: Getty Images
The US Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Louisiana announced the development on Wednesday, October 28, 2026.
Nigerian wanted by FBI: How Hall disappeared
In January 2026, US District Judge Jane Triche Milazzo sentenced Hall to 96 months — eight years — in prison following her guilty plea to conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud and money laundering. The judge allowed her to remain on bond and ordered her to surrender to her designated prison in Minnesota by March 25, 2026.
Hall never arrived. According to GPS data from her electronic monitoring device, her last confirmed location was Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport on March 24, 2026, where the device went dark.
She had given her probation officer flight details to Minnesota, but airline records confirmed she never boarded that plane. She has been at large since, and a warrant has been issued for her arrest.
The romance scam that led to her conviction
Hall's original indictment in April 2024 centred on a romance scam that targeted mostly older women.
Members of the scheme posed as generals, philanthropists, or entrepreneurs living abroad, meeting victims on Facebook and Instagram before steering conversations to encrypted platforms such as WhatsApp.
Once trust was established, they would ask victims to send money under false pretexts, including funding charitable work or helping sick relatives.
Hall and her co-defendant, Kenneth G. Akpieyi of Marietta, Georgia, set up a company called Le Beau Monde LLC to channel victim funds. Hall deposited money from victims into company accounts before transferring it to other financial institutions, including foreign banks.
She admitted to causing $851,207 (about ₦1.36 billion) in losses. Akpieyi, who was found responsible for more than $3.5 million (about ₦5.6 billion) in victim losses, was convicted after a four-day jury trial in July 2025 and sentenced to 25 years in prison. He is currently incarcerated.
US Attorney David I. Courcelle said:
"HALL was convicted for defrauding our vulnerable, elderly citizens out of their retirement funds. Her flight from the law demonstrates her utter disregard of our judicial system. We will continue to pursue HALL, and any person who may be facilitating her failure to appear to serve her federal prison sentence."
If convicted on the new charge, Hall faces up to ten additional years in prison to run consecutively with her existing sentence, a fine of up to $250,000 (about ₦400 million), and up to three years of supervised release.
Anyone with information on Hall's location can call 1-800-CALL-FBI or submit a tip at tips.fbi.gov.
View the FBI's Facebook post below:
In a related story, Legit.ng reported that the FBI director had announced the capture of six most wanted fraudsters across four continents.
FBI arrests Nigerian over alleged romance scam
Meanwhile, Legit.ng previously reported that the FBI had apprehended a Nigerian fraudster over an alleged romance scam.
Abudu appeared before the US District Court in Rhode Island on October 21, 2026, and was ordered to remain in custody ahead of trial, according to a statement from the US Department of Justice.
A federal grand jury in Providence returned a superseding indictment naming Abudu as one of six defendants accused of laundering millions of dollars generated through a network of fraud schemes run out of Nigeria.
Source: Legit.ng
