Romance And Elderly Scams With Kenneth Anim's Samanti Group

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 9-4 – Romance And Elderly Scams With Kenneth Anim’s Samanti Group – Act 4: Punishment.

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

Romance And Elderly Scams With Kenneth Anim’s Samanti Group – Act 3: Arrests

Sources:

Transcript:

00:00:10:00 – 00:00:20:00
Keith
Hey, welcome back to eCrimeBytes. This is season two, episode nine. This is the concluding act, Act four the punishment.

00:00:20:00 – 00:00:44:23
Keith
Now, if you haven’t watched Act one, two or three and you’re jumping in now and I’m looking at you on YouTube because I know a lot of times you’ll find things just randomly on YouTube and you’ll jump in on Act three and go, What the hell is this guy talking about? We have other acts that you should watch and I’m going to link now if you’re watching this on YouTube where you can go back and watch Act One and watch this whole thing in order and it’ll make a lot more sense.

00:00:44:26 – 00:01:03:25
Keith
But the real quick tour is we have a couple, Kenneth Anim or Anim, depends on how you pronounce it. Seth And I’ve been talking about this. I’ve been going back and forth on it. It’s spelled ANIM. You should it’s in the title there if you even that for audio listeners

00:01:03:25 – 00:01:12:10
Keith
so Kenneth and his first wife who had four children with him she’s now an ex-wife he has a new wife we have an additional child with

00:01:12:10 – 00:01:18:01
Keith
his first wife, helped him with romance scams and elderly scams.

00:01:18:04 – 00:01:21:10
Keith
And together they

00:01:21:10 – 00:01:42:07
Keith
took 5.3 million from their victims. And it wasn’t like they took it from a couple of people and it went into one account. It was a pretty complex scheme where they had a bunch of accounts with fake shell companies that open the accounts and then have the victims send money to these different accounts and victims.

00:01:42:08 – 00:02:02:16
Keith
It ranged from anywhere from 1.1 million down to about $1,000, with the bulk of the victims landing between $25,000 and $100,000. That was the sweet spot range there. So we’re back to Act four, which is punishment because we left you with them being charged and arrested.

00:02:02:16 – 00:02:14:17
Keith
Well, now we have Kenneth pleading guilty and he pled guilty on April 27th of 2023, which is just a few months ago, if you’re watching this,

00:02:14:17 – 00:02:20:27
Keith
near when we recorded it, he only pled guilty to one count, which is count two.

00:02:20:27 – 00:02:23:03
Keith
This is illegal money transmitting business.

00:02:23:03 – 00:02:32:22
Keith
Now, in this plea, the government and Anim agree the loss is 5.3 and some odd change million dollars.

00:02:32:22 – 00:02:53:05
Keith
That’s how I came up with this figure throughout this is at the end they both said yep, yep. That’s how much he stole from people. So that’s why we know that number now. When they were looking at sentencing for this crime, This crime is looking at a max of five years and a $250,000 fine.

00:02:53:07 – 00:03:16:13
Keith
And we go back to our past episode. Seth and I go, remember the four years for several million dollars? And then there was four years for only, like what, Maybe like tens of thousands of dollars. What we’re talking five years max for $5.3 million, which seems not real bad trade off as far as our episodes go.

00:03:16:13 – 00:03:37:05
Seth
Yeah, So let’s hear about what he actually got. So July 31st, two, 2023, which was literally last month when we recorded this, we got the sentencing. So the defendant is hereby committed to the custody, the Federal Bureau of Prisons, to be in prison for a total term of 60 months. So that’s five years.

00:03:37:08 – 00:03:38:26
Keith
Yep.

00:03:38:28 – 00:03:45:08
Seth
And on top of that, he’ll get three years of supervised release, which is fairly consistent. But let’s get into the sentencing.

00:03:45:08 – 00:03:58:09
Seth
So what’s interesting here is the restitution of 2.2, $3 million here. And that’s really just adding up all the different names of the payees or the victims and how much they individually lost.

00:03:58:09 – 00:04:00:05
Seth
And if you recall, we talked about this earlier,

00:04:00:05 – 00:04:19:13
Seth
one of the victims had, you know, loss of over $1.1 million, with the next one being over 309,300,000, rather, excuse me. The follow on was 168,000. And the other ones were all under 100 K, but still nothing like the lowest one was over $25,000.

00:04:19:15 – 00:04:22:13
Seth
I saw that one person 1500 dollars. She got off cheap.

00:04:22:13 – 00:04:34:07
Seth
So you add it all up and they are asking for restitution of 2.3 million. Why not the whole 5 million? I’m not sure. Maybe it was already spent.

00:04:34:10 – 00:04:59:04
Keith
From what I understood, they couldn’t identify the victims. So this is his restitution to people they could identify that he stole money from who they know and they agreed upon 5.3, so we know there’s this isn’t even half of what it was that he scammed out of people that he has to pay restitution. And I’m going to argue he probably will never ever be able to pay in his life unless he does some other criminal activity because there’s so much money.

00:04:59:04 – 00:04:59:20
Seth
Agreed.

00:04:59:20 – 00:05:24:18
Keith
Okay. So we’re the end of the case. All right. So final thoughts on this now. Like we said, that was a sentencing. It was just like a month ago. No word on ex-wife’s case at all. Like I couldn’t find anything that says, you know, we’re considering this or that. There’s just it’s kind of silent. So my thought was, well, maybe they use that to kind of pressure him to make a plea deal.

00:05:24:18 – 00:05:33:15
Keith
Maybe it will just kind of go away for his wife and they won’t end up actually charging her. And it will just stay like in the indictment phase, which it can do.

00:05:33:17 – 00:05:53:23
Seth
I bet that it’s not that. I bet that not forget if he rolled over relatively quickly and got to a plea and the sentencing was only, what, you know, a month or two ago, we’re only you know, we’re recording this in mid of September. I suspect that we’re not done with Akua Dufie’s case yet. I also wonder if she’s implicated in other crimes.

00:05:53:26 – 00:05:58:06
Seth
So we’ll keep up on this and we’ll update people as we learn more about it.

00:05:58:06 – 00:06:04:29
Keith
As it being that they charged her second and later. It seemed really weird that

00:06:04:29 – 00:06:07:13
Keith
they kept naming coconspirators throughout. But then

00:06:07:13 – 00:06:23:04
Keith
at the last moment they charged her and then he pled. So it’s kind of like, all right. So also we’re talking about millions of dollars here, millions, one one person, millions of dollars, one scammer, millions of dollars.

00:06:23:06 – 00:06:33:21
Keith
Now you see why the scam never ends. I itt produces so much money for the scammers that why would they ever stop doing it as long they don’t get caught right

00:06:33:21 – 00:06:44:04
Keith
now, here’s the thing. In all these cases, all of them, the victims gave away millions of dollars without ever meeting a real physical person

00:06:44:04 – 00:06:47:19
Keith
that here, that’s kind of one of those.

00:06:47:21 – 00:07:03:25
Keith
We try to give you the if you do this, it’ll protect yourself. This is one of those things where the verification process, this is really the only protection you’re going to have against a scammer like this. And even then it’s kind of hard because they’re going to claim, Oh, I’m in a different country or my camera is broken, or a million different reasons why they can’t

00:07:03:25 – 00:07:10:23
Keith
Me But if you really, you know, let’s say you love a person, if that person can’t meet you, that’s that’s a big red flag.

00:07:10:23 – 00:07:11:20
Seth
Yeah, for sure.

00:07:11:20 – 00:07:30:26
Seth
I like I said, I just find the elderly side of this to be especially heinous. Like I said, I mean, I think both of us have relatively elderly parents and it’s, you know, you can see how easily they can be taken advantage of. I feel like my father has been kind of scammed on some of this more than once.

00:07:30:26 – 00:07:56:29
Seth
And moreover, you know, I think he’s been scammed generally. Like, you know, he he’ll get a random, you know, politically motivated ad and, you know, do a deep dive into that. And I’d be like, I saw this on the news. I’m like, that wasn’t really news Dad. So I just feel like you know for various reasons just because I guess of a lack of sophistication for some people, not all obviously all people are like are not sophisticated on technology and what can come out of that.

00:07:56:29 – 00:08:16:12
Seth
But many of them are, and that’s why that’s a whole sub industry. I find that to be really, really awful. And I’m pretty sure that was probably one of the reasons that didn’t go documented and what was available and to why he got five years for a relative heavily modest amount compared to what we’ve seen. Other people have stolen $10-20 million and gotten less time.

00:08:16:12 – 00:08:21:29
Keith
if you’re a listener on here, you’re going, I would never fall for this thing. Well, I think there’s

00:08:21:29 – 00:08:33:01
Keith
there’s a perfect storm of some things that have to happen in order for you to be a victim. Now, if I can relate this to my personal life, I’m going to pick on my fucking mother for a moment.

00:08:33:03 – 00:08:54:07
Keith
My mother was convinced that God damn auto correct was the cell phone towers changing your messages as it’s being sent to somebody else. I think she still believes that. I mean, we’re talking like years and you go, Oh, my God, that sounds horrible. Yes, this is what you’re talking about. You, you,

00:08:54:07 – 00:09:01:04
Keith
you prey upon somebody that doesn’t understand technology and say things like, oh, cryptocurrency.

00:09:01:04 – 00:09:20:06
Keith
It’s what everybody uses. It’s not it’s not to be alarmed at all or hey, send gift cards. It’s totally normal if you’re trying to convince a person that already think cell phone towers change your text messages and it’s not this thing called autocorrect, you’re convincing is not going to be you’re not going to have to put that much energy into it, right?

00:09:20:08 – 00:09:21:07
Seth
No.

00:09:21:09 – 00:09:46:17
Keith
Indeed not So, yeah, take that. Take that for what it’s worth, when you think, oh, you know, how could people get scammed? There are people out there that believe things that you would go that just doesn’t seem believable and scammers can prey upon that. And my you know, my mom hasn’t been scammed on that one. But, you know, probably pretty easily could be and she wouldn’t know the difference Seth.

00:09:46:19 – 00:10:08:16
Seth
Yeah I mean for me it’s and we deal with this at work and we constantly get phishing You know kind of a little test to see you know, if people pick up on phishing emails and you be surprised people still fall for it. If you’re seeing strange I mean of a little bit of practical advice for those who need it or interested, if if there’s lots of spelling errors that shouldn’t be, it might be

00:10:08:16 – 00:10:31:06
Seth
Jason Leidel… No, I’m kidding. Like it could likely be, you know, a scammer especially, you know, if somebody claims to come from a different country because most people I know I’m never going to speak better English than people who are from America. You know, if it seems too good to be true, it is. If it’s involving sending money to get money, it’s it’s bullshit.

00:10:31:08 – 00:10:53:06
Seth
If it involves moving things like plutonium or platinum or other kind of precious metals, gold, it’s probably bullshit. Although there are exceptions. I guess unless you’re Razzlekhan, we’ll get to that. So I just feel like, you know, use your best judgment here. But if it’s coming through the Internet, you know, we should automatically have a little bit of saltiness to it and be like, Well, wait a second.

00:10:53:08 – 00:11:12:15
Seth
Right? And I think, you know, just being a little bit of vigilant more than you might need to be is always better than trusting everybody. And this is where the elderly thing really throws me off as being as egregiously awful with that. I think it was a good episode uh Jones, and I hope that everyone enjoyed I learned a little something.

00:11:12:18 – 00:11:42:08
Keith
Well, you know, you mentioned Jason Leidel and it just happened today. I was doing research and for all listeners and watchers out there, if you haven’t noticed, yeah, I put the transcripts, I go through by hand and I do all the closed captions, so I try to make them as accurate as possible. Well, what are the benefits to this is all the transcripts are in my blog, so whenever I’m looking for something or wondering if we talk about something in a particular episode, I can very quickly search my blog.

00:11:42:10 – 00:11:59:12
Keith
And today I just happen to be looking for something on Jason Leidel. And it took me forever because we mentioned Jason Leidel and so many episodes. Any time anybody spells anything bad, we’re like, Oh my God, that guy is as bad as Jason Leidel. He’s definitely one of our running jokes now.

00:11:59:12 – 00:12:02:09
Seth
Seth I’m okay with that.

00:12:02:12 – 00:12:03:28
Keith
Yeah, definitely.

00:12:03:28 – 00:12:11:14
Keith
All right. How do you reach us? Well, you can go to our web site eCrimeBytes dot com. And I’m not going to keep spelling it out every episode.

00:12:11:14 – 00:12:30:21
Keith
It’s just eCrimeBytes. Spelled the computer way with y as in yellow milk. How about that? Dot com. You get all our social media there. Now, whatever application that you’re listening to or watching us on, please, like and subscribe there specifically if you are on Apple podcast, though

00:12:30:21 – 00:13:02:25
Keith
give us a five star review and tell us whatever episode it is that was your favorite. With that. Oh my God do I have a preview for for next week Seth. This one is episode ten of season two and it’s called the Bitfinex. That’s the name of a company. It’s called the Bitfinex Bitcoin Heist with Dutch and Razzlekhan. And if you’re watching this and this is why you need to watch this if you can, we have the picture of Dutch and Razzlekhan here and you’re probably like, What the fuck. It’s this young couple together.

00:13:03:01 – 00:13:20:22
Keith
And they’re humorous looking together. She’s throwing up gang signs, I would say. And she is a rapper and they steal some Bitcoin and it’s a pretty interesting heist. So we’re going to walk you through from the beginning to the end. You’ll learn some pretty fun stuff about this couple you want.

00:13:20:22 – 00:13:32:12
Seth
Also, it’s like put put her into the category of worst rapper ever. We thought it was bad when we heard some a bigrigbaby’s stuff. This is a whole new level of bad.

00:13:32:14 – 00:13:53:26
Keith
Yeah I told I text Seth while I was researching this and I said Razzlekhan makes BigRigBaby look like Dr. Dre. That was a quote. Yes. So with that hope you come back and join us. We’re not going to be playing her raps. Don’t. Don’t worry. Don’t worry. Do come back for our humor. We will be doing that part.

00:13:53:26 – 00:14:01:01
Keith
So come back next week with episodes ten. It’s Bitfinex Bitcoin Heist with Dutch and Razzlekhan. Thanks. Bye.

00:14:01:04 – 00:14:02:23
Seth
Bye. Bye.

DrKeithJones.com

Romance And Elderly Scams With Kenneth Anim’s Samanti Group – Act 4: Punishment

Sources:

Transcript:

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