Nigerian man Sherifdeen Mogaji, 39, is accused of and arrested for a scam that led the Boulder Valley School District to be out of $852,733.83.

The report of the theft was made over 3 years ago, and Mogaji was finally booked in the Boulder County Jail Friday on the suspicion of theft between $100,000 and $1 million, computer crime and forgery.

At the Boulder County Jail Mogaji is held on a $100,000 bond while waiting for the formal filing of charges. If he does post bond, he will have to surrender his passport, according to the original arrest affidavit signed in October 2016.

According to the affidavit, Mogaji is accused of stealing about $850,000 in bond construction money that was supposed to go to contractor Adolfson and Peterson Construction.

Investigators reported that the school district was contacted by someone claiming to be with Adolfson and Peterson in August 2016 asking to change the way the company was paid, so they filled out a form transferring the payments to direct deposits to a bank account in New Jersey.

Approximately a month later, Adolfson and Peterson informed the school district of missing payments, and told the school district that the company had not requested changes to their payment process.

During that time, four payments were made to the new account totaling $852,733.83. The bank was able to reverse three of the payments and froze about $300,000 still left in the account, in total recovering $480,800.51, according to Colorado Hometown Weekly.

According to the affidavit, Mogaji wired some of the money to himself in Nigeria, wrote checks to cash, paid off student loan payments and made online purchases.

The Boulder Valley School District now only uses paper checks.

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