Allen Onyema, CEO of Nigerian airline company Air Peace, stands accused of using his business as a front for fraud, with charges brought against him for obstruction of justice and submitting false documents aimed at halting a federal investigation into previous allegations of bank fraud and money laundering; his accomplice, Ejiroghene Eghagha, also faces charges related to the alleged obstruction scheme, detailed in a superseding indictment released by the U.S. Attorney's Office.
U.S. Attorney Ryan K. Buchanan emphasized the serious nature of the charges, stating, "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 a report by the U.S. Department of Justice.
The allegations stem from activities between 2010 and 2018, during which Onyema is said to have opened multiple bank accounts in Atlanta and subsequently funneled more than $44.9 million from foreign sources into these accounts, while in 2016, Onyema and Eghagha are accused of using export letters of credit to transfer over $20 million into Atlanta-based bank accounts controlled by Onyema, purportedly to fund the purchase of Boeing 737s for Air Peace from a non-existent company.
After learning of the investigation against him in 2019, Onyema supposedly tasked his attorneys to submit a falsely dated contract as evidence to the government—a contract he had rather than the one allegedly caused to be undated at the time of signing to prevent detection of the fraud; this move was part of an attempt to terminate the investigation and regain access to his frozen bank accounts, says the indictment, which also charges Onyema with 27 counts of money laundering and Eghagha with one count of aggravated identity theft.
Both Allen Ifechukwu Athan Onyema and Ejiroghene Eghagha maintain their presumption of innocence until proven guilty, with the onus on the government to establish their guilt beyond a reasonable doubt during a trial. Their indictment is part of an Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces operation, undertaken by a consortium of federal agencies including the Drug Enforcement Administration, Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation, and Homeland Security Investigations, among others, with Assistant U.S. Attorneys Garrett L. Bradford and Christopher J. Huber prosecuting the case.
