A Texas Court has convicted and jailed two Nigerians for laundering $160 million in fraud earnings to Nigeria through their company, Ping Express U.S. LLC.
The Texas-based company’s chief executive officer (CEO), Anslem Oshionebo, 45, and its co-founder and chief operating officer (COO), Opeyemi Odeyale, 43, were both handed a 27-month jail term for their role in the crime.
The company acknowledged it failed to maintain an effective anti-money laundering and unlicensed money transmission programme over the last three years.
It also admitted it failed to seek sufficient information about the sources or purposes of the funds involved in the transactions, a statement released by the US Department of Justice (DoJ) on July 15 said.
The court also jailed the firm’s IT/business development manager for 42 months after he pleaded guilty to knowingly transmitting illegally derived funds.
The US attorney for the Northern District of Texas, Chad Meacham, said the company which was licensed to transmit money but was not licensed to conduct currency exchange, charged US customers a fee to remit money to beneficiaries in Nigeria and other African nations.
Citing part of the company’s plea documents, the US government said the company also admitted it allowed more than “1,500 customers” to violate its anti-money laundering policy.
“The company outlined its anti-money laundering policy in a memo to state regulators, claiming it would cap first-time customer transactions at $499, cap daily transactions at $3,000, and cap monthly transactions at $4,500.
“However, in plea papers, the company admitted it allowed more than 1,500 customers to violate these rules. In one instance, Ping allowed a customer to remit more than $80,000 in a single month – more than 17 times the purported limit,” the DoJ statement read in part.
“Within a 3-year period, Ping Express US LLC, helped customers to remit a total of $167 million to Africa. Out of this sum, $160 million was remitted to Nigeria. And the company was said to have failed to verify the sources of the funds or what they were intended for,” Mr Mecham said.
Three people, including two of Ping Express’s most important clients, previously entered guilty pleas for using the company to transfer monies that were obtained unlawfully, according to the statement.
