A Nigerian man identified as Okechukwu Desmond Amadi, has been sentenced to 11 years in US Prison for international fraud.
The Nigerian man who was sentenced to 11 years in US prison by District Judge James Moody on Wednesday, April 10, was found guilty of conspiracy to commit money laundering and money laundering.
A forfeiture order of $833,625 was issued against him and it represents the proceeds of the charged criminal conduct. He was also ordered to pay $1,358,500 in restitution to the victims.
The convict who worked with an international criminal organization based in Nigeria, that defrauded dozens of victims across the United States with multiple schemes and then laundered the funds through a complex network of bank accounts, was found guilty of the crime on November 7, 2018.
It was alleged that the criminal organization identified as Neo Black Movement of Africa or the Black Axe Group, coordinated the fraud and money laundering activity around the globe via cells or “zones” in Nigeria, Canada, the United States, and elsewhere.
Victims of the international fraud were mostly widowed or divorced elderly women, and the fraudsters posed as fake suitors on dating websites to develop relationships with their victims.
They then convinced the women to wire money, often consisting of their retirement savings and cash taken out from home equities, to bank accounts in the United States as part of a supposed investment opportunity.
Bank records presented at trial demonstrated that, from 2012 to 2015, several millions of dollars in wire transfers were funneled into Black Axe accounts to be laundered.
Amadi, a real estate investor and insurance broker in Texas, used his own bank accounts to launder more than $833,000 in fraud proceeds that victims had sent to accounts controlled by his associate in the Dallas area.
Amadi wired much of that money overseas, including to Canada and Nigeria, to promote the conspiracy and conceal the source of the funds.