Two Ghanaian men, identified by U.S. prosecutors as “chairmen” of an international criminal network, have pleaded guilty to their involvement in a large-scale cyber fraud operation that defrauded victims across the United States of more than $100 million through romance scams and business email compromise schemes.
The defendants, Isaac Oduro Boateng, 37, popularly known as “Kofi Boat,” and 41-year-old Inusah Ahmed, also known as “Pascal,” both Ghanaian nationals, entered their guilty pleas before U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian at the Southern District of New York. Boateng pleaded guilty on Thursday, October 29, 2026, while Ahmed admitted his role in the scheme on October 27, 2026.
Both men pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, an offence that carries a maximum prison sentence of 20 years.
U.S. Attorney Jamie McDonald said the guilty pleas underscore that international borders would not prevent individuals who defraud Americans from being brought before U.S. courts to face justice.
According to McDonald, Boateng and Ahmed played supervisory roles in an international criminal organisation that targeted vulnerable Americans by exploiting their desire for companionship and manipulating their trust for financial gain. He added that the defendants and their accomplices coordinated an extensive fraud operation that resulted in losses exceeding $100 million among victims nationwide.
According to the indictment and publicly available court documents, Boateng and Ahmed belonged to a criminal network largely operating from Ghana, which carried out romance scams and business email compromise schemes targeting individuals and businesses throughout the United States.
Many of the victims were vulnerable older men and women who were manipulated into believing they were involved in genuine online romantic relationships. In reality, the people they communicated with were using fake identities created by members of the criminal network.
After gaining the victims’ trust, the fraudsters persuaded them to transfer money to the organisation or assist in laundering funds obtained from other victims. The group also targeted businesses through business email compromise schemes, deceiving them into transferring money, which was subsequently laundered and moved to West Africa.
In a related development, Judge Arun Subramanian previously sentenced another member of the group, Derrick Van Yeboah, also known as “Van,” to 85 months in prison. However, another alleged accomplice, Patrick Kwame Asare, known as “Borgar,” remains at large.
U.S. Attorney Jamie McDonald acknowledged the contributions of several law enforcement and government agencies in the United States and Ghana towards the investigation and prosecution of the case. These included the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Ghana’s Attorney General’s Office and its International Cooperation Unit, the Economic and Organised Crime Office, the Ghana Police Service, the Cyber Security Authority, the Ghana Immigration Service, the National Intelligence Bureau and the Financial Intelligence Centre.
Other agencies recognised were the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s Sensitive Investigation Unit, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of International Affairs, the U.S. Department of State and the FBI Legal Attaché Office in Accra. Their collaboration contributed to the extradition of Boateng and Ahmed to the United States on August 7, 2025.
The prosecution is being handled by the Complex Frauds and Cybercrime Unit of the U.S. Attorney’s Office, with Assistant U.S. Attorneys Kevin Mead and Mitzi Steiner leading the case.
