JOSEPH IORHEMBA ASAN JR., Romance Fraud, New York 2020

JOSEPH IORHEMBA ASAN JR., a 24-year-old former U.S. Army Reservist from Daytona Beach, Florida, has been sentenced to 46 months in prison for his involvement in a romance fraud and money laundering scheme that targeted dozens of victims across the United States.

According to court documents, Asan and his co-defendant, CHARLES IFEANYI OGOZY, were members of the U.S. Army Reserves who participated in a scheme to commit fraud against dozens of victims, defraud banks, and launder millions of dollars in fraud proceeds from at least 69 identified victims.

The scheme involved romance scams, in which Asan and his co-conspirators deluded unsuspecting older women and men into believing they were in a romantic relationship with a fake identity, and used false pretenses to cause the victims to transfer money to bank accounts under their control.

In addition, the scheme involved business email compromises, in which Asan and his co-conspirators gained unauthorized access to or spoofed email accounts and impersonated employees of a company or third parties engaged in business with the company, in order to fraudulently induce the victims to transfer money to bank accounts under their control.

Asan and OGOZY laundered millions of dollars in fraud proceeds through bank accounts they controlled, including Uxbridge Capital LLC, Renegade Logistics LLC, and Eldadoc Consulting LLC. They opened at least 10 business bank accounts at eight different banks in the names of these fake businesses and used those accounts to receive and transfer to co-conspirators overseas over $1.8 million in fraud proceeds.

Asan was arrested on October 31, 2019, and pled guilty on December 23, 2020, to conspiracy to commit bank fraud and wire fraud. He was sentenced to 46 months in prison, three years of supervised release, to forfeit $184,723, and to pay restitution of $1,792,015 to victims.

The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command’s Major Procurement Fraud Unit.

Source: https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/us-army-reservist-sentenced-46-months-fraud-and-money-laundering-scheme-involving-theft