Ghanaian fraudster, Tourey Ahmed Rufai, who fled to Ghana after he was sentenced to four years in prison, was extradited to the United States on Friday, to serve his sentence.
The former Bronx resident was arrested in Ghana on April 14, this year, before he was extradited on August 6.
Audrey Strauss, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, along with other officials, announced Rufai’s extradition.
Rufai was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Denise L. Cote on April 12, 2019.
It was in connection with his participation in a fraud scheme based in Ghana involving the theft of over $10 million through business email compromises and romance scams.
The gang targeted elderly victims from at least 2014 through 2018.
Court filings in Manhattan Federal Court gave a tale of the tape of Rufai’s criminal activities as follows:
Between 2014 and 2018, Rufai was a member of a criminal enterprise, based in Ghana that was involved in defrauding more than 100 American businesses and individuals of more than $10 million through business email compromises and romance scams.
Rufai and his co-conspirators received or otherwise directed the receipt of millions of dollars in fraud proceeds from victims of the enterprise, in bank accounts that they controlled in the Bronx, New York.
Some of these bank accounts were opened using fake names, stolen identities, or shell companies in order to avoid detection and hide the true identities of the members of theenterprise controlling those accounts.
Once the defendants received the fraud proceeds in bank accounts under their control, the defendants withdrew, transported, and laundered those fraud proceeds to other members of the enterprise, including those located in Ghana.
Rufai, 33, was released on bail shortly after his arrest on January 9, 2018, on conditions including a $150,000 bond co-signed by three individuals, surrender of all travel documents, and home detention with electronic monitoring through an ankle bracelet.
In addition to a prison term of four years, he was also on April 12, 2019 sentenced to three years of supervised release and ordered to forfeit $109,868.61 and pay restitution of $320,449.97 to victims.
The court ordered him to self-surrender to prison on May 24, 2019.