Favour Ashe, a 21-year-old Nigerian athlete, has been arrested on several counts of theft and fraud.
WTVM reports that Auburn Police detained Ashe on Thursday at his Alabama offices.
According to the report, Ashe is charged with four counts of fraudulent use of a debit/credit card and two counts of third-degree theft.
Auburn Police initially received a theft report on February 4, 2024, when a victim reported that numerous items had been stolen from a pocketbook in the 100 block of West Magnolia Avenue.
A credit card was among the stolen things, and the victim discovered that it had been used to make repeated fraudulent payments.
According to the complaint, Ashe was taken to the Lee County Jail and is being held on a $9,000 bond.
Ashe is one of Nigeria’s fastest sprinters in history, running 9.99 seconds in the 100 meters at the national championships in 2022. However, he has a personal best of 9.96 seconds, set in the NCAA Championships semi-finals last year.
He also represented Nigeria at the 2022 and 2023 World Athletics Championships, as well as the 2022 Commonwealth Games, where he earned bronze in the 4 x 100-meter relay.
According to BoldSports, Ashe is the most recent group of Nigerian athletes located in the United States to be imprisoned on fraud charges.
Bold Sports reported in November 2022 that five Nigerian athletes had been arrested and charged with wire and mail fraud in the United States.