Deborah Mensah, Money Laundering, New York 2021

A Ghanaian national has been sentenced to nearly six years in prison for her participation in a multimillion-dollar money laundering conspiracy, authorities announced Monday.

Deborah Mensah, 70, was sentenced to 70 months in prison for her role in laundering millions of dollars from business email compromises and romance scams that targeted the elderly, said Audrey Strauss, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York.

Mensah was extradited from Ghana in August 2020 and pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit money laundering in April 2021. U.S. District Judge Denise L. Cote imposed the sentence, which is the culmination of a complex investigation.

According to the indictment, Mensah was a member of a criminal enterprise that committed business email compromises and romance scams against individuals and businesses across the United States, including in the Southern District of New York, from at least 2014 to 2018.

The scheme involved tricking businesses into wiring funds into accounts controlled by the enterprise, which included fake email accounts and forged signatures of company employees. The enterprise also conducted romance scams by using electronic messages to delude victims into believing they were in a romantic relationship with a fake identity assumed by members of the enterprise.

Mensah and her co-conspirators received or otherwise directed the receipt of over $10 million in fraud proceeds, which they laundered through a network of bank accounts in the Bronx, authorities said.

Audrey Strauss, the Manhattan U.S. Attorney, said Mensah was a member of an international criminal enterprise that stole millions of dollars from businesses and vulnerable individuals across the United States, and laundered that money through a network of bank accounts in the Bronx.

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