The owners of Ping Express US LLC, a Texan payments firm with ties to the UK, have been sentenced to 27 months in jail over $160million alleged proceeds of fraud that were sent to Nigeria through the company.
According to Bloomberg, Anslem Oshionebo, 45, and 43-year-old Opeyemi Odeyale were sentenced after being found guilty of failing to maintain effective anti-money laundering controls. They were also found guilty of unlicensed money transmitting.
According to US legal filings, the money was sent over a period of about three years. Ping Express, which is based in Dallas, sent customers’ remittances to Nigeria, Kenya and other African nations.
In one three-year period highlighted by the DoJ, the firm failed to flag a single suspicious transaction to regulators despite processing a “significant amount” of them, though it filed a batch of reports later.
