Nigerian leaders of US fintech firm plead guilty to money laundering charges after sending $ 160 million to Nigeria
The leaders of a US fintech company, Ping Express, have pleaded guilty to violating money laundering rules after sending $ 167 million to Africa unchecked in less than 3 years. Of this total amount suspected of having been laundered, $ 160 million was sent to Nigeria.
According to a statement from the US Department of Justice, the company admitted that it did not seek sufficient details about the sources or the purpose of the funds involved in the transactions, or the customers who started the transfers. Some of the money sent to Nigeria was also suspected to be income from internet fraud.
The DOJ revealed that Ping CEO Anslem Oshionebo and its COO, Opeyemi Odeyale, pleaded not guilty to maintaining an effective anti-money laundering program. Ping’s IT / Business Development Manager, Aleoghena Okhumale, is also said to have pleaded guilty to deliberately transferring illegal funds.
The CEO and COO were recently sentenced to 27 months in federal prison each, while the IT / Business Development Manager was sentenced to 42 months in prison.
Offenses committed by the company
- According to court documents, the company – which was licensed to transfer money but was not licensed to carry out currency exchange – charged US customers a fee to transfer money to recipients in Nigeria and other African nations.
- By law, Ping was required to report all suspicious transactions to regulators.
- In complaint documents, it admitted that it had not submitted a single report over a three-year period, despite a significant amount of suspicious customer activity.
- Ping also admitted to conducting money laundering operations in states where it was not licensed to do so, including Nevada, New Jersey, Utah, West Virginia and Connecticut.
- The company claimed to have software that could detect and deter transfers initiated in “unlicensed” states, but in reality, it admitted, the program did not work.
- In its summaries to state regulators, Ping chose to include a column labeled “IP Location,” but only registered states where Ping was properly licensed: Texas, Maryland, Georgia, Washington, and Washington, DC.
Other Nigerians fingered
According to the statement from the DOJ, three people – including two of Ping’s best customers – have previously pleaded guilty to having transferred illegally derived funds through Ping.
- “One, Collins Orogun, admitted last week that he accepted a fee in exchange for transferring money to scams with romance and other criminals. In one case, an Indiana woman sent $ 15,000 to ‘Carson Jacks,’ an alleged oil rig in The Gulf of Mexico she fell in love with online, after he told her he had malaria, in another Indiana woman sent $ 6,300 to ‘Thomas Ken’, an alleged Irish captain she fell in love with online, to fix the ship his.
- “In two years, Mr. Orogun received more than $ 1.3 million in cash, cashiers’ checks and transfers to several US bank accounts he controlled, and then quickly moved more than $ 1 million of the funds to Africa through Ping. He faces up to 20 years in federal prison and is set to be sentenced on January 23, 2023. ” the statement read.
Ping Express, the company, is now facing a five-year trial and a fine of up to $ 500,000. The sentencing is set for 19 December 2022.
