Join us to hear the story of Kenneth Anim and his ex-wife Akua Dufie and how they swindled victims out of $5.3 million dollars using romance and elderly scams. This is eCrimeBytes.com S 2 Ep 9-3 – Romance And Elderly Scams With Kenneth Anim’s Samanti Group – Act 3: Arrests.
For the background, please see the prior acts:
Romance And Elderly Scams With Kenneth Anim’s Samanti Group – Act 1: The Conspirators
Romance And Elderly Scams With Kenneth Anim’s Samanti Group – Act 2: Make Fat Stacks
Sources:
- https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/63575928/united-states-v-anim/
- https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdtx/pr/dual-citizen-gets-max-laundering-romance-scam-proceeds
- https://coveringkaty.com/news/fort-bend/richmond-man-sentenced-to-five-years-for-romance-scam-target/
- https://shoutouthtx.com/meet-kenneth-anim-ceo/ (Photos)
- https://omgvoice.com/news/kenneth-anim-ghana-online-romance-scam/
- https://www.click2houston.com/news/local/2023/02/28/richmond-woman-accused-of-working-as-money-mule-in-yearslong-nationwide-romance-fraud-scheme-feds-say/
Transcript:
00:00:10:00 – 00:00:12:03
Keith
Hey welcome back to eCrimeBytes.
00:00:12:03 – 00:00:32:04
Keith
This is season two, episode nine. We’re talking about Kenneth Anim and his ex-wife. They are romance and elderly scammers. We talked about how in Acts one and two and if you’re on YouTube, a little thing you can click up here where you can go straight to act one if you want.
00:00:32:04 – 00:00:36:14
Keith
If you have if you’re too stubborn to go back and you haven’t watched it,
00:00:36:14 – 00:01:00:14
Keith
I’m going to give you a real quick tour. This is the tour. Kenneth and his ex-wife, they scammed a lot of people. There was one person in particular they scammed $1.1 million. And then each person was kind of a little less from there. And the lion’s share of the people scammed were somewhere between 25 to $100000. When you put it together, they made $5.3 million.
00:01:00:16 – 00:01:01:07
Keith
The
00:01:01:07 – 00:01:32:06
Keith
authorities have traced, I think it was $2.2 million to actual known victims, but they had $5.3 million in these accounts, these multiple accounts that they would make for the romance scam that they would have the victims send money to. So we last left you with that. Now we have the arrests. This is act three. So on July six of 2022, this is pretty recent.
00:01:32:09 – 00:01:55:28
Keith
Anim is indicted. Now there’s this is the first indictment. There’s another one coming along and a few minutes. This one has five counts to it. The first count is conspiracy to commit money laundering. Now, remember, act one, I said, you going to hear money laundering you’re going to go, Wait a minute, I was talking about scamming. Yeah, we’re this is kind of like the technicality, I think, of how they catch them.
00:01:55:28 – 00:02:10:05
Keith
It’s kind of like Al Capone being charged with tax evasion. It’s just the law that kind of fix it. So count two is unlicensed money transmitting business. Counts three through five is money laundering spending statute.
00:02:10:05 – 00:02:11:02
Keith
So
00:02:11:02 – 00:02:20:19
Keith
six days later, Kenneth’s arrested. So indictment came out, little under a week later, he’s arrested. He asked for bail. So Kenneth asked for bail through
00:02:20:19 – 00:02:39:15
Keith
his attorney, since he spends so much time in Ghana and has access to large amounts of money, his bail was denied. And you’re going to see this is a theme, I think, something I brought up this is probably a second or third time now where we said, hey, look, this person was denied bail because they could be a flight risk and they have a shit ton of money from their crimes.
00:02:39:15 – 00:02:51:27
Keith
And that’s pretty much what you hear. So other reasons why he’s a flight risk, his new wife and child live in Ghana. So they say, hey, he could just take off and go live with his family over there
00:02:51:27 – 00:03:11:17
Keith
in some paperwork. And the judge cites this. He stated once that he moved to Ghana in 2019. So when he asked for bail in 2022, the judges isn’t having it because, you know, he says back in 2019 that he moved to Ghana.
00:03:11:17 – 00:03:39:14
Seth
Okay, so July 12th, 2022, Kenneth Anim is arrested. So the judge had a large written order here that basically talked about how the defendant had a very large potentially criminal empire regarding transmitting money, money laundering, romance schemes, all the other things that we we talked about. He had $5 million in stolen money.
00:03:39:14 – 00:03:52:08
Seth
He had pulled $500,000 out of those accounts. And he had went over to Ghana and because he has ties to other parts of the world, he’s considered a world traveler. The judge was not having any part of any bail here.
00:03:52:08 – 00:04:00:02
Keith
What was I thought was interesting was they did note they couldn’t find him having any type of legitimate job. It’s not like.
00:04:00:05 – 00:04:00:22
Seth
Why did that you.
00:04:00:22 – 00:04:15:09
Keith
Know, he was he was, you know, he had like income from a normal consulting job or anything like that. It the agent said that this is all he did and that he must be good at it because it was $5.3 million. Right.
00:04:15:11 – 00:04:16:12
Seth
Yeah.
00:04:16:14 – 00:04:42:05
Keith
So February 16th of 2023, which is this year, recent superseding indictment, they add ex-wife Akua Dufie to the indictment. She is the first wife, the woman with the four children, the woman that looked very unhappy because she had four children. I feel her. I feel her. I know. Now there’s slightly difference in the counts in the superseding indictment.
00:04:42:05 – 00:05:10:21
Keith
And both Kenneth and his ex-wife are now under this umbrella. So count one is a conspiracy to do the money laundering like before. Count two is unlicensed money transmitting business, just like before. Now, those counts three through seven, which is two more additional. This is money laundering spending statute. So they found two more situations that they could charge them with and added those two additional counts on there and added her name.
00:05:10:23 – 00:05:33:19
Keith
And I didn’t mention it, but for you audio listeners, I’ve been showing her picture here to the video viewers as well. This is every time I see this either I don’t think it’s a mug shot. She’s not wearing like a mug shot looking clothes, but she looks so unhappy. So it’s got to be a driver’s license photo, I imagine, because that’s the only other place you’re going to be that unhappy, right, Getting your driver’s license away.
00:05:33:19 – 00:05:36:18
Seth
It looks like a passport photo because of the white background. But what do I know?
00:05:36:23 – 00:05:45:15
Keith
Yeah. Yeah. All right. So with that, this is the finish of act three. We got one more act. Act four. But this is the finish of Act three.
00:05:45:15 – 00:05:54:04
Keith
If there’s anything in here you like, please like it. Subscribe on whatever app you’re watching or listening to us on. If you’re on Apple Podcasts, please give us a five star review there.
00:05:54:06 – 00:06:16:19
Keith
Tell us what episode you enjoyed the most and if you haven’t visited our website, please do it. eCrimeBytes spelled the computer way. B Y as in yellow milk T E S. And again, please do come back tomorrow. We have act four the punishment. Thanks.
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