A warrant of arrest has been issued against Allen Onyema of Air Peace Limited for alleged money laundering and bank fraud in the United States. Accord
A warrant of arrest has been issued against Allen Onyema of Air Peace Limited for alleged money laundering and bank fraud in the United States. According to PREMIUM TIMES, the warrant was signed by Justin Anand, an American magistrate of the United States District Court of the Northern District of Georgia, on November 19. The warrant authorizes U.S. Marshals Service to take Onyema into custody.
The Chief Executive Officer of Air Peace, has denied fraud allegations levelled against him by the United States government. In a press statement on Saturday, he said the allegations are false and do not reflect his personality as a business owner.
Onyema in his statement argued that he is innocent, as the indictment only contained charges.
“As the press statement clearly stated, these are indictment (sic) that only contains charges. I am innocent of all charges and the US government will find no dirt on me because I have never conducted business with any illegalities,” the statement said.
“Be rest assured that I also have my lawyers on this and these mere allegations will be refuted. I never laundered money in my life, neither have I committed bank fraud anywhere in the world. Every Kobo I transferred to the US for aircraft purchase went through the Central Bank of Nigeria LC regime and all were used for the same purpose.
“The American companies that received the funds are still in business. I never took a penny from any US bank or Nigerian bank. I am willing to defend my innocence in the US courts,” the Air Peace CEO stated.
The U.S. and Nigeria have a mutual legal assistance policy that allows both countries to extradite suspects facing criminal charges. Several Nigerians have been sent to the U.S. to stand trial for alleged fraud. It was unclear whether the U.S. authorities have sought an extradition of Onyema as part of efforts to execute warrant of arrest issued against him.
Allen Onyema was indicted on Friday for allegedly laundering suspicious funds in excess of $20 million dollars in the U.S. Ejiroghene Eghagha, Air Peace’s head of finance and administration, was also indicted and an arrest warrant issued equally against him. The two Nigerian business executives were accused of conniving to commit money laundering and bank fraud for several years.
The U.S. Department of Justice made the allegations public on Friday but did not mention that an arrest warrant had been issued for Messrs Onyema and Eghagha. Details of the arrest said Onyema used several non-commercial entities he registered to conduct commercial businesses in the United States.
In a bid to expand its regional and local operations, in September 2018, Air Peace placed an order for 10 Boeing 737 Max 8 and earlier this year the airline purchased 10 brand new Embraer 195-E2 planes from Brazil in a deal said to be worth $212.6 million.
According to U.S. prosecutors, in 2010, Onyema opened several bank accounts in the U.S. and moved over $44.9 million into the accounts domiciled at Atlanta. In May 2016, Onyema alongside Eghagha, prosecutors said, allegedly used a series of export letters of credit to transfer more than $20 million into the bank accounts. he letters were used to fund the purchase of five Boeing 737 passenger planes.
Prosecutors, however, said the letters were accompanied by fake supporting documents such as purchase agreements, bills of sale, and appraisals proving that Air Peace was purchasing the aircraft from Springfield Aviation Company LLC, a business registered in Georgia.
The allegations also included how Onyema facilitated fraudulent letters of credit to American banks to procure aircraft, equipment and luxury goods. About $14 million traced to his bank accounts in the U.S. and Canada have been frozen as federal authorities pursue a final forfeiture order.
The seizure came after extensive investigation of how Onyema allegedly conducted the fraud between 2010 and 2018.
