LAGOS JUNE 8TH (NEWSRANGERS)-A New Jersey man has been sentenced to more than four years in prison and ordered to pay more than $1 million in restitution after pleading guilty to scamming several victims out of hundreds of thousands of dollars — including a man who sent him more than $400,000, believing the money was for a woman who needed help paying her medical bills.
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in New Jersey, Kenny Osas Okuonghae, 38, pleaded guilty last April to conspiring to commit money laundering. On Thursday, June 4, a judge sentenced him to four years and three months in prison.
Officials said that Okuonghae’s scams took place from 2019 through approximately December 2023 and targeted victims across six states. They included property rental scams, romance scams and a “pig butchering” — referring to an internet scheme in which a romance scam victim develops what the victim perceives to be a romantic relationship online with the perpetrator.
“The perpetrator emotionally ‘fattens’ the victim up before enticing the victim to invest in a fake scheme and then, metaphorically, ‘slaughters’ the victim by taking the victim’s money,” U.S. Attorney Robert Frazer’s office wrote in a press release.
During the course of the scams, more than $4 million flowed through around 13 bank accounts at seven banks, many of which Okuonghae had opened under his LLC, Kenny Global Enterprises, NJ.com reported.
A criminal complaint from the FBI states that the pig butchering scam involved an Ohio man, referred to as “Victim-1,” who met someone he believed was named “Aggie Gonzales” online.
“Through the course of their online relationship, ‘Aggie Gonzales’ asked Victim-1 to help her purchase medical equipment, with the intention that ‘Aggie Gonzales’ would repay Victim-1,” the complaint states. The fictional woman also claimed that she had been injured and needed the man to send her money to cover hospital bills.
Over the course of the scheme, Okuonghae sent the man financial documents, pretended to be a doctor in Brazil, set up fake cryptocurrency investments, shared emotional stories about the purported illnesses and more.
“I plead with you on behalf of her to please save this woman’s life,” he wrote to the man at one point, pretending to be “Dr. Ben Levy” and sending a picture of a woman in a hospital bed. “I understand that you may be doing the best you can, but you need to know that time is not on her side.”
In a separate incident with the Ohio man, Okuonghae also convinced him to pay a fake cryptocurrency platform called Alphacoin Lab. He told the man that he had funds in an account but needed to pay taxes and fees first, which had to be wired to Kenny Global Enterprises, LLC, which he was told was a subsidiary of Alphacoin.
“Alphacoin Lab maintained several different websites purporting to reflect that Alphacoin was a legitimate cryptocurrency investment platform,” the complaint states. “One of the websites promised a ‘120% per annum (10% per month)’ return on [investments].”
The Ohio man eventually lost $416,155 in the course of the scams. A woman in Washington, known as “Victim-2,” wired $4,100 to Okuonghae’s Kenny Global Enterprises bank account to secure a rental home.
“Victim-2 then drove to the address of the home listed on the rental agreement and knocked on the door to ask the current tenant if they were vacating the home in a month,” the complaint continues. “The tenant of the home told Victim-2 that she was not moving, that Victim-2 was the victim of a scam, and that other people had come to the home with similar inquiries.”
Two other victims, located in Ohio and Connecticut, were told that they were speaking with a high-ranking former Army general named “Jodie DeSidero” who needed help getting money out of Syria and financial assistance to obtain a package that was caught in customs, respectively, according to the complaint.
The seven total victims lost more than $1.2 million, which has been traced back to Okuonghae’s bank accounts.
One bank flagged some suspicious wire transfers and contacted Okuonghae, who told them that his account was for his car parts business and claimed the payments were for engines and parts from a customer he had known for five years.
Investigators later found invoices for truck parts in his email, backdated and created after the money had already moved, per court records obtained by NJ.com.
Okuonghae was eventually arrested in October 2022, the outlet reported. He faced several other charges, but four other counts were dismissed at his sentencing.
In addition to his prison sentence, Okuonghae was ordered to undergo three years of supervised release and pay $1,275,190 in restitution.
Read the original article on People
For media advert placement, events coverage, media consultancy, placement of publications and further inquiries please WhatsApp 2348023773039 or email: labakevwe@yahoo.com
