NEW YORK — Two men prosecutors describe as “chairmen” of a Ghana-based international criminal organisation that stole and laundered more than $100 million from victims across the United States have pleaded guilty in federal court in New York, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York announced on Thursday, October 29, 2026. Isaac Oduro Boateng, known as “Kofi Boat,” pleaded guilty that day, and Inusah Ahmed, known as “Pascal,” pleaded guilty on October 27 — both to conspiracy to commit wire fraud, a charge that carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.
Both pleas were entered before U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian. Boateng is 37 and Ahmed is 41, and both are from Ghana, according to the Justice Department. Announcing the pleas, U.S. Attorney Jamie McDonald said the two men “helped supervise an international criminal organization that preyed on vulnerable Americans, exploiting their search for companionship and turning their trust into a means of stealing millions.”
How the two scams worked — romance first, then business email
According to the indictment and public court filings cited by the Justice Department, the organisation was primarily based in Ghana and ran two kinds of fraud against individuals and businesses located across the United States. In the romance scams, members created fake identities and used them to build online romantic relationships with victims — many of them vulnerable older men and women who believed the relationships were real. Once trust was gained, the victims were deceived into sending their own money to the enterprise, or into helping launder money stolen from other victims.
The second track was business email compromise: the conspirators induced businesses to wire funds to the enterprise, the Justice Department said — the familiar pattern in which a spoofed or compromised email account makes a payment instruction look routine and legitimate. In total, prosecutors say, the conspiracy stole and laundered more than $100 million from dozens of victims, and after the money was taken, the fraud proceeds were laundered to West Africa.
The “chairmen” — and what each man has accepted responsibility for
Prosecutors say Boateng and Ahmed were both “chairmen” of the conspiracy who played a role in managing and supervising its activity — not couriers or money mules, but senior figures. Boateng is being held responsible for approximately $12.5 million in victim loss and has agreed to make restitution of $12,529,213.98 and to pay forfeiture in the same amount. Ahmed is being held responsible for approximately $28.5 million in victim loss and has agreed to restitution of $28,574,002 and forfeiture in the same amount. Together, the two restitution agreements total $41,103,215.98. The Justice Department notes that the maximum sentence is prescribed by Congress and is given for information only — each man’s actual sentence will be determined by Judge Subramanian.
“These guilty pleas demonstrate that geographic borders will not shield those who exploit Americans from facing justice in our courts,” U.S. Attorney Jamie McDonald said in the Justice Department’s October 29 statement. “Together with their coconspirators, they orchestrated a massive fraud that stole more than $100 million from victims across the country.”
Background: a case built across two continents
The pleas did not come quickly. Reporting on the case in Ghana says the FBI’s investigation was publicly announced in June 2025 and that the alleged fraud targeted victims across the United States, including in the Southern District of New York, between 2016 and May 2023. Boateng and Ahmed were extradited to the United States on August 7, 2025. In its announcement, the U.S. Attorney thanked the FBI and a long list of Ghanaian and U.S. partners for securing those extraditions — Ghana’s Attorney-General’s Office and its International Cooperation Unit, the Economic and Organised Crime Office, the Ghana Police Service, the Cyber Security Authority, the Ghana Immigration Service, the National Intelligence Bureau and the Financial Intelligence Centre, alongside the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s Sensitive Investigation Unit, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the Justice Department’s Office of International Affairs, the State Department and the FBI’s Legal Attaché Office in Accra.
Source: The High Street Journal, Oct. 29, 2026
Two other names frame where the wider case stands. Judge Subramanian has already sentenced a co-defendant, Derrick Van Yeboah, known as “Van,” to 85 months in prison. Another co-defendant, Patrick Kwame Asare, known as “Borgar,” remains at large, the Justice Department said. The prosecution is being handled by the office’s Complex Frauds and Cybercrime Unit, with Assistant U.S. Attorneys Kevin Mead and Mitzi Steiner in charge.
Why this matters for older readers — and for small businesses
Romance fraud and business email compromise are two of the most damaging fraud patterns reported in the United States precisely because they do not look like crime at the start: one begins as companionship offered to an older person living alone, the other as an ordinary invoice or payment instruction landing in a business inbox. For Punjabi diaspora families in New York, New Jersey and across the country, the practical lessons from this case are direct: an online partner who can never meet, video-call clearly or be verified — and who eventually asks for money, gift cards or help moving funds — is following the exact script described in this indictment, and a sudden change of bank details on an emailed invoice should always be confirmed by a voice call to a number you already have, never a number in the email itself. Money “held” or “moved” for an online partner can also make the helper a money launderer in the eyes of investigators, which is how some victims in schemes like this one ended up laundering other victims’ losses.
What happens next
Boateng and Ahmed now await sentencing before Judge Subramanian; the Justice Department’s announcement did not set a sentencing date, and the judge will determine each sentence after considering the applicable law and guidelines — the 20-year figure is a ceiling, not a promise. The restitution and forfeiture amounts the two men agreed to — $12,529,213.98 from Boateng and $28,574,002 from Ahmed, each in both categories — will form part of those judgments. Separately, the hunt for Patrick Kwame Asare, who remains at large, continues, and victims’ recovery will depend on what assets investigators can actually seize and return, a process that in international fraud cases typically runs long after the pleas are entered.