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HomeEXTRABUSINESSNigeria's Allen Onyema, Air Peace Owner Used U.S. Banking System to Hide...

Nigeria’s Allen Onyema, Air Peace Owner Used U.S. Banking System to Hide Source of Ill-gotten Wealth: Justice Department

Allen Onyema, Nigeria’s airline Air Peace chief, has been accused of multimillion-dollar fraud by the United States government in an indictment unsealed on Friday.

“Allegedly, Onyema and his accomplices fraudulently used the U.S. banking system in an effort to hide the source of their ill-gotten money,” said assistant special agent in charge Lisa Fontanette, Internal Revenue Service – Criminal Investigation Atlanta Field Office.

Fontanette added that Friday’s superseding indictment indicated the dedication of IRS-CI special agents and our law enforcement partners as part of the Organised Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces to neutralize threats to the United States from criminal organisations.

“After allegedly using his airline company as a cover to commit fraud on the United States’ banking system, Onyema, along with his co-defendant, allegedly committed additional crimes of fraud in a failed attempt to derail the government’s investigation of his conduct,” said U.S. Attorney Ryan K. Buchanan. “The diligence of our federal investigative partners revealed the defendants’ alleged obstruction scheme, making it possible for the defendants to be held accountable for their aggravated conduct of attempting to impede a federal investigation.”

According to U.S. Attorney Buchanan, the superseding indictment, and other information presented in court, Onyema, a Nigerian citizen and businessman, is the CEO and Chairman of Air Peace, a Nigerian airline founded in 2013. Between 2010 and 2018, Onyema travelled frequently to Atlanta, where he opened several personal and business bank accounts. More than $44.9 million was allegedly transferred into his Atlanta-based accounts from foreign sources.

Beginning in approximately May 2016, Onyema and Eghagha allegedly used a series of export letters of credit to cause banks to transfer more than $20 million into Atlanta-based bank accounts controlled by Onyema. The letters of credit were purported to fund the purchase of five separate Boeing 737 passenger planes by Air Peace and were supported by documents such as purchase agreements, bills of sale, and appraisals.

The documents purported to show that Air Peace was purchasing the aircraft from Springfield Aviation Company LLC, a business registered in Georgia.

However, the supporting documents were allegedly fake – Springfield Aviation Company LLC was owned by Onyema and managed on his behalf by a person with no connection to the aviation business, and Springfield Aviation never owned the aircraft. The company that allegedly drafted the appraisals did not exist. Eghagha allegedly participated in this scheme as well, directing the Springfield Aviation manager to sign and send false documents to banks and even using the manager’s identity to further the fraud. After Onyema received the money in the United States, he allegedly laundered over $16 million of the proceeds of the fraud by transferring it to other accounts.

In May 2019, upon discovering that he was under investigation in the Northern District of Georgia for bank fraud, Onyema and Eghagha allegedly directed the Springfield Aviation manager to sign a key business contract but also specifically told her not to date the document.

In October 2019, Onyema allegedly caused his attorneys to present that same contract, now falsely dated as being signed on May 5, 2016 (prior to the bank fraud that began in 2016), to the government to stop the investigation and unfreeze his bank accounts.

Allen Ifechukwu Athan Onyema, 61, of Lagos, Nigeria, and Ejiroghene Eghagha, 42, of Lagos, Nigeria, were indicted on November 19, 2019, on one count of conspiracy to commit bank fraud, three counts of bank fraud, one count of conspiracy to commit credit application fraud, and three counts of credit application fraud.

Additionally, Onyema was charged with 27 counts of money laundering, and Eghagha was charged with one count of aggravated identity theft. On October 8, 2024, they were both charged in a superseding indictment alleging an additional count of obstruction of justice and one count of conspiracy to obstruct justice.

This effort is part of an Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces (OCDETF) operation. OCDETF identifies, disrupts, and dismantles the highest-level criminal organizations threatening the United States using a prosecutor-led, intelligence-driven, multi-agency approach.

Onyeama was charged in a superseding indictment with obstruction of justice for submitting false documents to the government to end an investigation of him that resulted in earlier charges of bank fraud and money laundering. Ejiroghene Eghagha, the airline’s Chief of Administration and Finance, was also charged with participating in the obstruction scheme and the earlier bank fraud counts.

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