Togo Alien Sentenced

⏱ 2 min read

Gedeon Agbeyome, a 31-year-old illegal alien from Togo, was sentenced to six years in prison for his role in a massive money laundering scheme that bilked nearly $3 million from unsuspecting victims in Maryland. The scheme, which involved business email compromise fraud, was carried out between June 2021 and May 2023. Agbeyome, who lived in Silver Spring, Maryland, used shell entities and stolen identities to launder the stolen funds.

According to court documents, Agbeyome received at least $2.8 million in proceeds from the fraud scheme and pocketed a portion of the funds in exchange for his role in the conspiracy. He also admitted to participating in an underlying wire-fraud conspiracy that involved defrauding victims through sophisticated email scams.

Agbeyome’s sentence was announced by U.S. Attorney Kelly O. Hayes, who was joined by Special Agent in Charge Christopher R. Heck of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and other law enforcement officials. In addition to his prison term, Agbeyome was ordered to pay $2,938,424.65 in restitution and forfeit $2.8 million in ill-gotten gains.

The case was the result of a joint investigation by HSI, the Internal Revenue Service-Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI), and the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Inspector General (EPA-OIG). At least 14 individuals have been prosecuted in connection with the money laundering conspiracy, which involved the use of shell entities and stolen identities to launder stolen funds.