A 21-year-old Nigerian athlete, Favour Oghene Tejiri Ashe, has been arrested on multiple counts of theft and fraud.
Ashe, according to WTVM report, was arrested by Auburn Police on Thursday at his Alabama base.
The report stated that Ashe is specifically being charged with four counts of fraudulent use of a debit/credit card and two counts of theft of property third degree.
Auburn Police initially received a theft report on February 4, 2024, when a victim reported that multiple items were stolen from a purse near the 100 block of West Magnolia Avenue.
A credit card was among the items stolen, and the victim discovered several fraudulent charges were made using the stolen card.
Ashe was transported to the Lee County Jail and held on a $9,000 bond, the report indicated.
Ashe is one of the fastest Nigerian sprinters in history, having run 9.99s in the 100 meters at the national championships in 2022. He however holds a personal best of 9.96s he ran at the semi-final of the NCAA Championships last year.
He also represented Nigeria at the 2022 and 2023 World Athletics Championships and the 2022 Commonwealth Games, where he won a bronze medal in the 4 x 100 meters relay.
Ashe is the latest set of US-based Nigerian athletes to be arrested on fraud-related charges in the US, BoldSports reports.
Bold Sports in November 2022, reported how five Nigerian athletes, Toluwani Adebakin, Emmanuel Ineh, reigning African Games 100m champion Raymond Ekevwo, Mercy Abire and Aniekeme Etim were indicted and charged over wire and mail fraud in the US.
Adebakin and Ineh had earlier both been convicted of fraud and faced a possible 10-year jail term after they pleaded guilty to “violations of Title 18, United States Code, Section 1957, for engaging in monetary transactions in property derived from specified unlawful activities, collectively sending tens of thousands of illicitly obtained proceeds to fraudsters in Nigeria as part of a larger mail fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering conspiracy.”
Abire went on to plead guilty to conspiracy to commit money laundering and risked 20 years in jail.
