The United States government has piled more charges on the earlier $20 million bank fraud case against Allen Onyema, the CEO of Air Peace, as the Nigerian businessman continues to elude trial in an American court in the last five years.
Although Onyema, founder of the major Nigerian airline, has denied wrongdoing, he has been wanted in the US over the bank fraud charges pending against him and a co-defendant at the District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, in Atlanta since 2019.
“On 8 October 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,” the US Attorney Office, Northern District of Georgia, said in a statement on Friday.
The office said Onyema is accused of “obstruction of justice for submitting false documents to the government in an effort to end an investigation of him that resulted in earlier charges of bank fraud and money laundering.”
The US government has now filed a superseding indictment in the nearly five years old case, introducing two additional counts, bringing to 38 the total number of counts now pending against Mr Onyema and his co-defendant.
US authorities accused Onyema of moving suspicious funds from Nigeria to American bank accounts between 2017 and 2018 with the funds allegedly disguised as being meant to be used to purchase aircraft.
Onyema and his co-defendant, Mr Eghagha, allegedly organised the fraud by applying for export letters of credit for the transfer of funds from a Nigerian bank account to the bank account of Mr Onyema’s Atlanta-Georgia-based firm, Springfield Aviation LLC, between 2016 and 2017.
The defendants, according to US prosecutors, applied for the funds purportedly for the purchase of aircraft by Air Peace from Springfield Aviation.
Both Air Peace, a major Nigerian commercial airline, and the US-based Springfield Aviation, are owned by Mr Onyema.
Prosecutors also said the aircraft referenced in each of the export letters of credit sent to the American banks was never owned or sold by Springfield Aviation.
They said the defendants made false statements and reports, and willfully overvalued property to influence the actions of the American banks.
Eghagha was said to have sent the false documents, including fabricated purchase agreements, bills of sale, and valuation documents, to Ms Mayfield to sign and submit to the respective banks in support of the letters of credit.
Onyema had engaged Ms Mayfield, who was at various times, a bartender, restaurant waitress, and nightclub dancer, in 2016, to act as a manager of Springfield Aviation, and enter into contracts on the firm’s behalf.
Prosecutors said she “had no connection to the aviation business outside of her role with Springfield Aviation and had no education, training, or licensing in the review and valuation of aircraft, including aircraft components.”
They alleged that Mr Onyema founded and used Springfield Aviation “to facilitate large transfers of funds from his Nigerian bank accounts to the United States.”
Onyema allegedly moved about $15 million from Springfield Aviation’s account with a Wells Fargo Bank branch in Atlanta, Georgia, to his personal savings account with the same bank in 27 transactions in 2017.
Each of the 27 transactions stands alone as a charge of money laundering.
In May 2019, upon discovering that he was under investigation in the Northern District of Georgia for bank fraud, Messrs Onyema and Eghagha allegedly directed the Springfield Aviation manager, Ms Mayfield, to sign a key business contract, but also specifically told her to not date the document.
In October 2019, Onyema allegedly caused his attorneys to present that same contract, now falsely dated as being signed on 5 May 2016 (prior to the bank fraud that began in 2016), to the government in an effort to stop the investigation and unfreeze his bank accounts.
The submission of the alleged false documents forms the basis for the new count of obstruction of justice and one count of conspiracy to obstruct justice in the superseding charges.
©Premium Times