Using the aliases 'Ghost' and 'Old Soldier', a swindler from Nigeria stayed in South Africa while targeting Americans through hacking into emails and requesting payments. Now, James Junior Aliyu faces more than seven years in a US jail and deportation, possibly back to Nigeria.

James Junior Aliyu was based in South Africa, from where he and some of his associates swindled American businesses and individuals out of millions of dollars through spoof emails.

Police were on to them, and in 2022, Aliyu was arrested in an upmarket estate in the Johannesburg suburb of Sandton.

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Originally from Nigeria, he was subsequently extradited from South Africa to the US.

Now, the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has announced that Aliyu, 30, will serve seven-and-a-half years in jail there.

Deportation - millions of dollars involved

In a statement posted to social media on Saturday, 21 March 2026, ICE added that Aliyu "will be removed from the United States when he completes his sentence."

It also announced that he faces a $1.2-million (more than R20-million) forfeiture order and a $2.4-million (around R41-million) restitution order, relating to losses his victims suffered.

The photograph that ICE posted of a sombre-faced Aliyu was a far cry from his Instagram profile picture that shows him lounging in a tracksuit top, cellphone in one hand and what looks like a champagne flute in the other.

This international saga stretches back several years.

James Junior Aliyu, a Nigerian national, will serve a 90-month...