BISMARCK — A Nigerian man has been sentenced to almost 12 years in prison after he scammed a North Dakota law firm out of nearly $200,000.

North Dakota U.S. District Court Judge Daniel Traynor sentenced Christopher Ndubuisi Agbaje on Wednesday, Sept. 11, to 142 months in federal prison. The sentence comes after a jury found Agbaje guilty in May of money laundering, as well as aiding and abetting with wire and mail fraud.

“This strong sentence shows that international fraudsters cannot hide from justice,” North Dakota U.S. Attorney Mac Schneider said in a statement. “When North Dakotans are the victims of fraud, our prosecutors and law enforcement partners will work internationally to hold defendants accountable in a federal courtroom in Bismarck or Fargo.”

Agbaje and others formed a “sophisticated scheme” to defraud a law firm in Mercer County out of $198,337, as well as a Florida law firm out of $195,500, from November 2020 to January 2021, according to court documents. The group falsely claimed to be the president of a Florida company called Anthem Equipment Inc., according to court documents. The group claimed to be in a legal dispute with a Bismarck company and then started a “fictitious attorney-client relationship” with the North Dakota law firm, a news release said.

Court documents didn’t identify the law firms.

Agbaje was extradited from the United Kingdom to North Dakota

in February.

Prosecutors asked for 60 months in prison, while Agbaje’s attorney, Dane DeKrey, recommended 37 months, according to court documents. A presentence investigation report advised a sentence of 57 to 71 months, court documents said.

The Forum has reached out to DeKrey for comment but did not hear back from him by publishing time.

WEST FARGO – I wouldn’t be surprised to find out kids who grew up on the beaches of California are more likely to surf than a kid from North Dakota. Fair is fair. If you were raised in the Midwest, I’d suggest your odds of growing into hunting and fishing are more likely than those from Laguna Beach.

Around these parts, even if you don’t buy a hunting and fishing license, it’s likely someone in your family or your neighbor does. The numbers prove it.

In North Dakota, 23% of all residents over the age of 16 bought a fishing license. That’s 141,712 North Dakotans who went fishing, plus an estimated 50,000 kids who don’t need a fishing license yet. That’s well ahead of the national average of about 15% of Americans who fished. Of that percentage, 73% of those anglers were male, and 27% were female, lagging behind the national average of 31% female, but nevertheless, fishing continues to rise in popularity among women.

Before we leave the statistical data, consider 152,414 hunters – 16.5% of North Dakota’s 16-plus age bracket – bought a hunting license, compared with just 6% as a national average.

As a department, Game and Fish wants to ensure this strong outdoor heritage continues. Thus, the department tracks the stats, and develops strategies to recruit, retain and reactivate hunters and anglers where appropriate – R3, for short.

Recruit new hunters and anglers. Retain the current and reactivate those who have, but have not taken part recently.

Hunting in the United States was built upon the principle that wildlife is a public resource owned by all, regulated by law, managed by science and funded by those – hunters and anglers – with skin in the game.

The Federal Aid in Wildlife Restoration Act of 1937 – known as the Pittman-Robertson Act – placed an 11% excise tax on firearms and ammunition and allocated those funds to wildlife habitat restoration, improvements and research.

The act was shortly followed by a mirrored effort for fisheries management – the Dingell-Johnson Act.

Around the same time, state wildlife agencies were formed to carry out these tasks, primarily funded through the sale of hunting and fishing licenses, including our very own North Dakota Game and Fish Department, founded in 1930.

As of 2020, North Dakota has received over $182 million from the Pittman-Robertson Act alone. These dollars are directed toward state-owned or -managed wildlife management areas, habitat restoration projects, public shooting ranges, our beloved and strong Private Land Open To Sportsmen (PLOTS) program and to fish stocking and boat ramps from Dingell-Johnson dollars.

From 2011 to 16, the U.S. lost 2.2 million hunters nationwide amidst population increases.

Here in North Dakota, we were one of four states that did not experience per capita hunting license decreases during that time. However, almost all our hunting and fishing license sales reflect declines in people ages 17 to 44.

Thus, we may not be seeing declines yet, but they’re coming if we don’t change the tides.

Furthermore, if we want secured advocacy for the things we care about – wildlife conservation, public land access, soil health, the list goes on – we need people on our side from all walks of life.

We need natural resource issues to transcend political parties, genders, races and ages.

That’s why the North Dakota Game and Fish Department is joining the growing effort across the country devoted to R3 – recruiting, retaining and reactivating the next generation of hunters, anglers and conservationists to carry on our legacy.

Learn more about R3 efforts on the Game and Fish website at

gf.nd.gov/r3.

Doug Leier is an outreach biologist for the North Dakota Game and Fish Department. Reach him at dleier@nd.gov.

FARGO — The Hector International Airport has received $8.5 million in federal funding to support its

$200 million construction

of a terminal expansion and parking ramp.

This money was given by the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) as part of the $24,499,236 given to airports throughout North Dakota through the Airport Improvement Program (AIP), according to a release from the office of Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D.

The future of the airport’s project came into question with Fargo City Commissioners debating in July about whether or not to renew the $1.6 million in local funding that the city gives each year to Hector International Airport.

Mayor Tim Mahoney proposed that the city reallocate that money in the 2025 budget — currently expected at just over $133 million — to provide a higher cost of living raise for city staff across the board.

Some commissioners objected to the idea and members of the Airport Authority said that, without that local funding, the future of the airport expansion could be in jeopardy because state and federal partners would follow Fargo’s suit and dis-invest.

Ultimately, the commission agreed to continue providing funding for the airport in 2025 and, in an effort to still provide city staff with raises to boost retention, agreed to find money to cut elsewhere in the city’s budget to pay for those raises.

What, exactly, will be cut has not yet been identified.

Hector International Airport also received the support of the North Dakota delegation earlier this year when they helped to secure the project an additional $10 million, according to the release.

Other North Dakota projects funded by the AIP include $9.8 million in funding so the Bismarck Municipal Airport can reconstruct and reseal portions of the paved taxiways and $6.1 million to allow the Minot International Airport to rehabilitate its taxiways as well as replace taxiway lighting, according to the release.

“North Dakota airports are essential infrastructure for our economy,” Cramer said in the release. “These funds will help our commercial and municipal airports make needed repairs, improvements, and expansions to ensure efficient operations.”

Our newsroom occasionally reports stories under a byline of “staff.” Often, the “staff” byline is used when rewriting basic news briefs that originate from official sources, such as a city press release about a road closure, and which require little or no reporting. At times, this byline is used when a news story includes numerous authors or when the story is formed by aggregating previously reported news from various sources. If outside sources are used, it is noted within the story.