Three Deaf Maryland residents facing federal charges related to online scams
Three Deaf people in Maryland are facing federal charges of conspiring to launder over $1 million in proceeds from a romance scam and other online frauds, according to a press release from the Department of Justice (DOJ).
The three people are Chidi Olujie, Jennifer Chibueze, and Jessica Nortey. The first two are Nigerian citizens and the third is a Ghanaian citizen. All three reside in Maryland.
The DOJ said a victim of an online romance scam lost $774,150 in 2017 through 2018.
The DOJ said in 2019, a victim had $140,000 stolen from their bank account.
The DOJ said there were two incidents of business-related fraud that resulted in over $100,000 in losses for victims.
The indictment said the three defendants worked to launder the proceeds of various fraud schemes by establishing various businesses entities and bank accounts and would keep a share of about 5-10% of the proceeds. The indictment did not explain where the rest of the money went to. It just described the three individuals’ roles.
The indictment said it has evidence of the three working together to discuss movements of money through text or WhatsApp messages that corresponded with bank statements and financial transactions.
The DOJ said each defendant was charged with conspiracy to launder monetary instruments and aggravated identity theft and that each person faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted on the laundering charge and up to 2 years on the identity theft charge.
Olujie may be familiar to the D.C. / Maryland Deaf community because he worked as a Deaf interpreter and had assignments interpreting for the D.C. mayor and the Maryland governor.
Chibueze recently worked for an organization in Maryland that supports people with disabilities. She graduated from Gallaudet in 2017 with a public administration degree.
Nortey worked at Gallaudet University in its Human Resources department and prior to that in its accounting office.
Gallaudet recently sent an internal email to the campus community acknowledging the indictment and explained that one employee was placed on administrative leave and that the other two people are former sub teachers at the Laurent Clerc National Deaf Education Center (Kendall Elementary and MSSD). Gallaudet said in the email that it’s taken safeguards to ensure there was no wrongdoing that affected university systems or anything that may have compromised employees’ personal information.
That’s the recap of the charges announced by the DOJ. In the transcript there is a link to the DOJ’s press release and the indictment.
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