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US authorities charged the owner of Nigeria’s largest airline with obstruction of justice in a $20 million fraud case.
The US Department of Justice said Allen Onyema, founder and chief executive of Air Peace, faces the new charge of obstruction “for submitting false documents” to the US government. Onyema, 61, allegedly submitted the documents in a bid to end an investigation that led to bank fraud and money laundering charges leveled in 2019, the DOJ announced on Friday.
Onyema is charged alongside Air Peace’s finance chief, Ejiroghene Eghagha.
The DOJ, in its 2019 bank fraud and money laundering indictment, alleged that both officials moved “more than $20 million” from Nigeria through US bank accounts using false documents based on the purchase of airplanes from a company allegedly based in the US.
Neither of the accused have been arrested since the first indictment. Air Peace said both “remain innocent,” adding that it was confident they will be “exonerated.”
— Alexander
