BOSTON — A 37-year-old Lynn man was sentenced in federal court Monday to 51 months in prison for orchestrating an international bank fraud and money laundering scheme, according to the U.S. Attorney’s office.
Chukwuemeka Eze has admitted to receiving and laundering approximately $1.4 million between May and June 2018, funds that were fraudulently obtained from a Korean company, prosecutors said.
Eze, who had been in federal custody since his arrest last June, pleaded guilty in November to bank fraud, money laundering and aggravated identity theft.
The scheme involved Eze’s use of a victim’s name, date of birth and Social Security number to open bank accounts in that person’s name, along with the name of a fake Massachusetts corporation, Levistronix GMD Ltd. Eze had chosen the name based on its similarity to an actual Swiss Company, Levitronix GmbH, prosecutors said.
For two months, participants in the scheme billed the Korean company, a customer of Levitronix, $1.4 million worth of fake invoices bearing the Levitronix name. The company was directed to send the funds to Eze’s similarly named Massachusetts bank account, prosecutors said.
After receiving the funds, Eze withdrew cash and spent or dispersed more than $862,000 of the Korean company’s money, which he was ordered to pay back in restitution during his sentencing.
His retail purchases, which included Apple laptops and Zales’ jewelry, were in excess of tens of thousands of dollars. The remainder was used to purchase $700,000 worth of bank checks, which he made payable to other fictitious companies he controlled and were deposited into bank accounts bearing those fake names. From there, he continued to make cash withdrawals, retail purchases and wire transfers in an effort to conceal the fraud scheme, prosecutors said.