Utah man indicted in phony Nigerian oil scam

Estimated read time: Less than a minute

This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A Utah man accused of trying to persuade people to give him more than $1 million for phony oil investments in Nigeria has been indicted on federal fraud charges.

Brandon Benson was charged with four counts of wire fraud in the grand jury indictment handed up Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Salt Lake City.

Prosecutors say Benson lived in Salt Lake City and Orange County, California when he solicited nearly $1.5 million from seven investors from 2007-10.

Benson allegedly told his victims that the shipments of oil would be purchased at locations in Africa and transported and sold at higher prices at other places in Africa.

He's accused of carrying out a Ponzi scheme by using money obtained from new investors to pay money owed to earlier investors.