Quartet in fraud case sentenced, likely sending one back to Nigeria

A Nigerian citizen with permanent residency in America and three others have prison sentences collectively just shy of 16 years for charges of money laundering netting $1.7 million in fraudulent proceeds, federal prosecutors in North Carolina say.

Adedayo Fateru, a Nigerian, was sentenced along with Lisa Farrow, William Atwater and Victoria Stone at the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina in Greensboro. The case was one of a trio among 17 revealed last week by the National Fraud Enforcement Division and U.S. Department of Justice.

The North Carolina fraud cases cost taxpayers about $27 million; the 17 in the Southeast collectively accounted for $350 million in losses.

Prosecutors say the quartet used business email compromises, modified check schemes, false ACH schemes, false applications for Economic Injury Disaster Loans provided during the COVID-19 pandemic, and false applications for unemployment benefits. The case says Farrow recruited Stone and Atwater to conspire to work with Fateru.

Stone opened 10 bank accounts and moved more than $1 million through them, and was able to get out more than $187,000. Atwater opened numerous bank accounts, moved more than $700,000 through them, and used more than 150 transactions to conceal fraud proceeds and was able to withdraw nearly $400,000.

Fateru was sentenced to seven years, three months, then goes to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody for removal proceedings in accordance with American immigration law. Farrow was sentenced to three years, nine months in prison; Atwater two years, nine months in prison; and Stone two years, one month in prison.

South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana are the others in the Deep South in the National Fraud Enforcement Division.