A United States court has reportedly reissued an order for the arrest of the Chairman and CEO of Air Peace Limited, Allen Onyema, over a $20 million fraud case that has been pending against him for five years.
According to reports, the federal district court for Northern Georgia, Atlanta, renewed the arrest warrant on 9 October, following the addition of more charges to the case against Onyema and his co-defendant – Ejiroghene Eghagha, the airline’s Chief of Administration and Finance.
US authorities filed the superseding indictment on 8 October, alleging obstruction of justice and conspiracy to obstruct justice.
The two counts added to the pre-existing 36 counts of conspiracy, money laundering, bank fraud, credit application fraud, and identity theft. The superseding indictment brought the counts to 38, according to Premium Times.
Early in October, Onyema was charged ‘in a superseding indictment with obstruction of justice for submitting false documents to the government in an effort to end an investigation of him that resulted in earlier charges of bank fraud and money laundering.’
However, the airline in response to the latest indictment insisted on the innocence of its Chairman and Finance Director even as it assured that the fresh charges would not affect its operation.
On the day the superseding indictment was filed, Assistant US Attorney Christopher Huber filed for a new arrest warrant after the first one issued against Mr Onyema in 2019.
On the following day, 9 October, a deputy clerk of the court signed and delivered the new arrest warrant to the US Marshal, the American body that carries out the arrest of fugitives.
Preparatory to the filing of the charges in 2019, Russell Vineyard, a magistrate at the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, issued a corresponding warrant of arrest for Messrs Onyema and Eghagha in Canada.
American prosecutors had sought the warrant to enable Canadian law enforcement authorities to take the suspects into custody if sighted in their jurisdiction.
In another arrest warrant issued on 19 November 2019, Justin Anand, an American magistrate of the same court, ordered the US Marshals Service to take them into custody.
In the 2019 charges, the US authorities accused Onyema of moving suspicious funds from Nigeria to American bank accounts between 2017 and 2018 with the funds allegedly disguised as being meant to be used to purchase aircraft.
The duo of Onyema and Eghaga allegedly applied for export letters of credit for the transfer of funds from a Nigerian bank account to the bank account of Mr Onyema’s Atlanta-Georgia-based firm, Springfield Aviation LLC, between 2016 and 2017.
The defendants, according to US prosecutors, applied for the funds purportedly for the purchase of aircraft by Air Peace from Springfield Aviation.
Prosecutors also said the aircraft referenced in each of the export letters of credit sent to the American banks was never owned or sold by Springfield Aviation.
