CHARLOTTE, N.C. — A Texas man could face up to 25 years in federal prison after pleading guilty to running a pair of years-long scams that targeted elderly victims and businesses.
On Wednesday, the office of the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of North Carolina shared that 41-year-old Emmanuel Unuigbe pleaded guilty to money laundering conspiracy and conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business. Unuigbe, from the Dallas, Texas, metroplex, ran the scheme from 2018 through 2023.
Prosecutors say Unuigbe and other conspirators from across the United States and around the world laundered millions of dollars of illegal proceeds. He admitted in court that he created Stage 23 Konsult LLC, which claimed to be a transportation business among other things. However, most of Stage 23's dealings involved money laundering and unlawfully transmitting money from criminal proceeds.
Court records say Unuigbe and his co-conspirators ran a pair of separate but related schemes. One scheme included the aforementioned online romance scams, in which elderly victims on dating and social media sites were convinced to transfer funds to bank accounts controlled by Unuigbe, Stage 23, and others.
The other part of the scheme involved business email compromise schemes, or BEC schemes, which often target businesses that use wire transfer payments. Prosecutors said Unuigbe admitted to tricking businesses into wiring legitimate payments to accounts he and his co-conspirators controlled.
Unuigbe and his co-conspirators would then rapidly drain those accounts after the payments were received, making multiple withdrawals and transfers into other accounts, including ones held overseas. The co-conspirators all were paid a percentage of the fraudulent proceeds as compensation.
Additionally, Unuigbe and the co-conspirators agreed to "pay" for domestic deposits received by others by transferring Nigerian Naria from the accounts controlled in Nigeria to other counts held in the country, based on a "black market" echange rate for converting United States Dollars to Naira.
The FBI aided in the investigation, which remains ongoing.
A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney's Office told WCNC Charlotte the reason Unuigbe was prosecuted in the Western District of North Carolina instead of Texas was because there were victims in the Charlotte area or in the jurisdiction of the Western District.