A Kansas City-area man was sentenced to 63 months in federal prison Wednesday for his role in a scheme that funneled money from the United States to buy bombs, ammunition and explosives for separatist fighters in Cameroon, while two co-defendants received 15-year sentences for their roles in kidnappings and bomb plots tied to the same network.
Claude Ngenevu Chi, 43, was sentenced to 63 months in federal prison, according to the KCTV. Co-defendants Francis Chenyi, Sr. of Minnesota and Lah Nestor Langmi of New York were each sentenced to 180 months, or 15 years, in prison, per the U.S. Department of Justice. Chi previously pleaded guilty to one count of conspiring to provide material support and resources to use weapons of mass destruction abroad, while Chenyi and Langmi were convicted at trial in December 2025.
A Financial Pipeline From U.S. Living Rooms to Cameroon's Front Lines
Federal prosecutors say the three men, U.S. citizens of Cameroonian origin, were involved in efforts to support separatist fighters in Cameroon. The network raised more than $350,000 through donations and online cash apps to buy weapons and explosives for fighters overseas, according to court filings cited by the Justice Department.
Chenyi handled ransom payments from families outside Cameroon who were trying to free kidnapped relatives, according to KCTV's report on the case. He also sent fighters a list of questions to ask captives, approved requests for money to buy homemade bomb parts, and helped arrange bomb-making training for fighters in Cameroon. Langmi and others asked Chenyi for money to buy parts for homemade bombs, and Langmi separately sent an audio message to fighters asking them to kidnap a local traditional leader.
Kidnapping of a Cardinal and a Traditional Ruler
Court evidence directly tied the network's spending to the November 5, 2020 abductions of two prominent Cameroonian figures: traditional ruler Sehm Mbinglo II, the Fon of Nso, and Cardinal Christian Tumi, a well-known Catholic leader. Cameroon fighters captured the local traditional leader and Cardinal Tumi during an ambush, according to KCTV. Chenyi sent money to the kidnappers through online cash apps, and prosecutors say the group used violence to disrupt local events in Cameroon, including a bomb-forced lockdown ahead of a local election in December 2020 that Chenyi and Chi helped fund from the United States.
Evidence at trial also showed Langmi worked to develop rocket-propelled grenades, according to the Justice Department. Langmi also tried to plan attacks near the 2021 Africa Cup of Nations soccer tournament, a detail that underscores how far the group's ambitions reached beyond localized violence.
Part of a Larger Regional Crisis
The violence the network funded is rooted in Cameroon's Anglophone Crisis, which escalated into armed conflict in 2017 when armed groups launched a military campaign seeking separation for two English-speaking regions, according to VOA. The conflict has displaced civilians. After the initial 2022 indictments in this case, Cameroonian Ministry of External Relations officials publicly praised U.S. authorities and said Cameroonian legal advocates had filed complaints against roughly 200 Cameroonian and American citizens suspected of funding separatist violence from abroad.
The case is not an isolated one. In September 2025, a federal grand jury in Minnesota indicted two other naturalized U.S. citizens of Cameroonian origin, Benedict Nwana Kuah and Pascal Kikishy Wongbi, accusing them of using their U.S. homes to direct kidnappings, bombings and killings for the Ambazonia Defense Forces, according to the Justice Department. Hoodline previously reported on a PPP fraud case involving a Maryland man who also faced a federal indictment for funding Cameroonian separatists, part of the same broader crackdown.
The Legal Basis for Prosecuting U.S. Residents
Prosecutors charged domestic residents who conspired to provide material support for violence or weapons of mass destruction committed outside the United States. Those charges formed the legal foundation for the case against Chi, Chenyi and Langmi, who ran what federal prosecutors described as a highly organized support network from the United States to fund separatist fighters in Cameroon.
Federal authorities investigated and prosecuted the case. With sentencing now complete for all three men, the case closes out a yearslong federal effort to trace how money raised in American communities ended up funding kidnappings and bomb-making thousands of miles away.
