Four individuals have been sentenced to prison in connection with a money laundering operation involving approximately $1.7 million in fraud proceeds, United States Attorney Dan Bishop of the Middle District of North Carolina announced on Aug. 5.
According to court documents, Adedayo Fateru, a Nigerian citizen and U.S. permanent resident, Lisa Farrow, William Atwater, and Victoria Stone were investigated by Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation and the United States Postal Inspection Service for their roles in a scheme involving various wire fraud activities. These included business email compromises, modified check schemes, false Automated Clearing House (ACH) schemes, fraudulent applications for Economic Injury Disaster Loans provided during the COVID-19 pandemic, and false unemployment benefit claims.
The investigation found that Farrow recruited Stone and Atwater into the conspiracy to work alongside Fateru. Farrow and Fateru gave instructions to Stone and Atwater on opening bank accounts and moving fraud proceeds. They also collected portions of the withdrawn funds from Stone or Atwater’s accounts.
Stone opened ten bank accounts that received about $1,036,679 from various scams including business email compromises. She withdrew approximately $187,375 through hundreds of smaller transactions designed to move and conceal the funds. Atwater opened multiple bank accounts under his name for similar purposes; his accounts received about $704,320 in fraud proceeds from sources such as false EIDL applications and business email compromise scams. He withdrew or removed around $390,352 via over 150 transactions intended to disguise the movement of these funds.
Fateru was sentenced to 87 months imprisonment followed by three years supervised release; upon completion of his sentence, he will be transferred to Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody for removal proceedings according to U.S. immigration law. Farrow received 45 months imprisonment with three years supervised release; Atwater was sentenced to 33 months imprisonment with two years supervised release; Stone received 25 months imprisonment with three years supervised release.
IRS Criminal Investigation and United States Postal Inspection Service are investigating this case, while Assistant U.S. Attorney Ashley Waid is prosecuting.