A Lehigh County man was sentenced in federal court to 12 months and one day in prison, two years of supervised release, fined $10,000 and ordered to pay restitution of $1,751,968 for defrauding victims through various Internet scams.

Chinedu Ekuma, 45, of Catasauqua, was sentenced Thursday by United States District Judge John M. Gallagher in Philadelphia. The sentence was announced by U.S. Attorney David Metcalf.

The defendant pleaded guilty to two counts of wire fraud in November 2025.

As detailed in court filings and admitted to by the defendant, from about August 2020 through March 2023, Ekuma was part of a scheme to defraud victims and to obtain money and property from victims by false pretenses, representations and promises.

The victims were individuals and businesses that intended to make payments to businesses and individuals for personal and/or business reasons. Several of the victims were led to believe their money was being used for investment opportunities, which turned out to be nonexistent, while others were victims of romance/friendship scams.

Ekuma owned entities called Intelaris Solutions LLC and Verge Capital, and opened several bank accounts in the name of those entities.

He and others caused the fraud victims to send payments to the Intelaris Solutions and Verge Capital bank accounts by falsely representing to them that those accounts were associated with the businesses and individuals whom the victims intended to pay.

In fact, the Intelaris Solutions and Verge Capital accounts were controlled by Ekuma. Intelaris Solutions and Verge Capital had no legitimate relationship with any of the victims.

After the fraud proceeds were received into the bank accounts, Ekuma transferred most of the money to other co-schemers and retained some for himself.

As part of the scheme, the defendant and co-schemers created, or caused the creation of, fraudulent documentation that falsely represented that Intelaris Solutions and Verge Capital were entitled to payments from the victims.

In total, the scheme resulted in victims losing more than $1.75 million and attempted to cause an additional approximately $650,000 in losses.

The case was investigated by FBI Philadelphia’s Allentown Resident Agency and IRS Criminal Investigation. It was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Francis A. Weber.