Judgment reserved in ‘Black Axe’ extradition case

Twenty months after the arrest of eight men for extradition to the US to be tried on transnational internet financial fraud charges, the courts are still arguing the technicalities of whether South Africa can indeed hand them over to US authorities. Perry Osagiede, Enorense Izevbiege, Franklin Osagiede, Osariemen Clement, Collins Otughwor, Musa Mudashiru, Toritseju Otubu, and Prince Mark were arrested in Parklands, Cape Town, in 2021. Described by the FBI as a group of Nigerian men who form the Cape Town chapter of the Neo Black Movement of Africa, also known as ‘Black Axe’, they are wanted for trial in the US on charges of wire fraud conspiracy and money laundering conspiracy between 2011 to 2021. Some are also charged with identity theft. The US Attorney's office said wire fraud alone carried a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. News24 reports that they allegedly used social media websites, online dating websites, and voice-over-internet protocol phone numbers to find and talk to victims in the US under various aliases. Their targets thought they were in a real romance, so if they hesitated with payment requests, they would be threatened with sensitive pictures of themselves being distributed. Judgment on settling some of the technical points of their extradition was reserved in the Cape Town Magistrate's Court last week.