A tech enthusiast, Sapphire Egemasi, has been arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in connection with a mega fraud scheme that targeted several American government agencies.
The programmer, who operates a Devpost account, was taken into custody around April 10, 2025, in Bronx, New York, alongside her partners in crime, including Samuel Kwadwo Osei, who appears to be the leader of the syndicate.
Their capture stems from a federal grand jury indictment filed last year, which charged the suspects with various counts of internet fraud and money laundering for crimes said to have happened between September 2021 and February 2023.
Sapphire and her Ghanaian co-defendants allegedly planned to defraud the city of Kentucky of millions of dollars.
Investigators have said that Egemasi’s role was mainly to design spoof websites impersonating official US government domains to steal login credentials and aid the transfer of stolen funds.
Before she was arrested, Sapphire was reportedly living in Cambridge, United Kingdom, but authorities have said she previously lived in Ghana, where she formed a bond with her co-conspirators.
The coder worked as the syndicate’s tech lead, creating fake websites and overseeing wire transfers to accounts the gang used to keep their illegal funds.
SMS records allegedly prove that in August 2022, the syndicate rerouted $965,000 stolen from Kentucky into a PNC Bank account. And in a different transaction around the same time, $330,000 was sent into an account with Bank of America.
To ensure the source of her wealth is kept secret, Sapphire reportedly claimed to have interned at major multinational companies like British Petroleum, H&M, and Zara.
Popularly referred to as “tech queen” on social media, Egemasi regularly flaunted her luxurious lifestyle and computer skills, particularly on LinkedIn.
On X and Instagram, she also posted pictures of herself on lavish vacations to destinations like Greece and Portugal, which the prosecutors believe were funded via illegal means.
