Date: March 8, 2024 Contact: newsroom@ci.irs.gov Columbus, OH — Prince Oduro of Westerville, was sentenced in U.S. District Court to 102 months in prison for wire fraud and conspiring to commit money laundering. As part of his sentence, Oduro will pay approximately $1.8 million in restitution. After being arrested in this case, Oduro was initially released from custody. He continued to defraud a victim of romance fraud while on release, causing an additional $709,500 in loss. According to court documents, Oduro was involved in multiple fraud and money laundering schemes for several years, including through his employment at a bank and via online romance scams. In 2015, while Oduro worked for JPMorgan Chase Bank in Columbus, he stole a customer’s bank information before calling to gain access to the account and fraudulently opening a PayPal account. Oduro transferred a total of $12,500 of the customer’s money to the PayPal account before withdrawing it in cash for himself. He attempted an additional $8,000 transfer but it was denied. In 2016 and 2017, Oduro stole the personal information of at least four other victims. He would then open PayPal accounts linked to the stolen information and use the accounts to launder the proceeds of online romance scams. In total, through March 2020, Oduro received and laundered at least $1 million in fraud proceeds. Victims sent money to individuals who they believed needed a medical operation, had been an American soldier in Afghanistan, were building roads in Dubai, had access to gold or silver, or other schemes. Oduro then laundered the fraudulent proceeds. For example, one victim was told her late husband had allegedly stored valuable artwork and other items in Atlanta. The story seemed plausible to the victim because her husband had traveled extensively. The victim sent a total of $390,300 to bank accounts controlled by Oduro to receive her husband’s purported assets. When law enforcement executed a search warrant on Oduro’s phone, they found messages in his WhatsApp messenger stating: “This is the only business in America I can do and make 20k in a month and not get arrested…I’m locating money, I’m not fraud anyone…It’s called money laundering.” Oduro was arrested in February 2022 and pleaded guilty in January 2023. After being arrested and even after pleading guilty, Oduro continued his romance fraud. Before his arrest, he had caused approximately $1.1 million in loss. He caused an additional $709,500 in loss after his arrest. After investigators discovered the fraud, Oduro was arrested in November 2023. Kenneth L. Parker, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio; Karen Wingerd, Acting Special Agent in Charge, Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation (CI); and Lesley Allison, Inspector in Charge, U.S. Postal Inspection Service (USPIS), Pittsburgh Division; announced the sentence imposed on March 7 by Chief U.S. District Court Judge Algenon L. Marbley. Assistant United States Attorney Peter K. Glenn-Applegate is representing the United States in this case. CI is the criminal investigative arm of the IRS, responsible for conducting financial crime investigations, including tax fraud, narcotics trafficking, money-laundering, public corruption, healthcare fraud, identity theft and more. CI special agents are the only federal law enforcement agents with investigative jurisdiction over violations of the Internal Revenue Code, obtaining a more than a 90 percent federal conviction rate. The agency has 20 field offices located across the U.S. and 12 attaché posts abroad.
