PRESS RELEASE
U.S. Department of Justice
United States Attorney Southern District of New York
FEBRUARY 20 , 2009
LEV L. DASSIN, United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and JOSEPH M. DEMAREST, JR., the Assistant Director-in-Charge of the New York Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”), announced today the indictment and arrest of PAUL GABRIEL AMOS in connection with an elaborate, internationally coordinated scheme to gain access to, or “take over,” an account at Citibank in Manhattan belonging to the National Bank of Ethiopia (“NBE”), and to steal approximately $27,167,078 from that account. As detailed in an Indictment returned yesterday in Manhattan federal court:
NBE serves as the central bank for Ethiopia and maintains offices in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Citibank N.A. provided U.S. Dollar account facilities to NBE through an account at Citibank’s offices at 111 Wall Street in Manhattan. During the period September through November 2008, AMOS and his coconspirators caused bogus documents to be sent to Citibank from, among other places, Lagos, Nigeria. These bogus documents included a “Corporate Resolution for Banking” purportedly issued by senior NBE officials, and a purported “Global Manual Transaction Authorization.” Signatures on those documents appeared to match the signatures of NBE officials in Citibank’s records. The Authorization, among other things, purported to authorize Citibank to accept wire transfer instructions from NBE by facsimile, and included a list of authorized officials – including the purported Governor of NBE and five other purported NBE officials – who could be contacted by telephone to confirm details of any fax instructions received, in what was referred to as a “call back” security check. In fact, the Corporate Resolution and the Authorization, while accepted as valid by Citibank, were forgeries and had not in fact been authorized by NBE.
Moreover, the telephone contact numbers that AMOS and his co-conspirators provided on the Authorization form did not belong to actual NBE officials in Ethiopia, but instead were Nigeria, South Africa and United Kingdom mobile telephone numbers used by co-conspirators.
After supplying Citibank with the bogus Corporate Resolution and Authorization documents, AMOS and his coconspirator caused instructions to be sent to a Citibank payments unit in Buffalo, New York, directing Citibank to wire funds from NBE’s account to various accounts controlled by AMOS and his coconspirators.
Citibank verified these instructions through call back security checks with one or more of the purported NBE officials. In this manner, between October 2 and October 16, 2008, AMOS and his co-conspirators caused Citibank to make a total of approximately 24 wire transfers, totaling approximately $27,167,078, to various accounts controlled by AMOS and his coconspirators in Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Australia, China, Cyprus, and the United States.
The Indictment against AMOS was returned late yesterday and charges him with one count of conspiracy to commit bank fraud and wire fraud. If convicted, AMOS faces a maximum sentence of 30 years’ imprisonment.
AMOS, 37, a citizen of Nigeria, resided in Singapore until his arrest in Los Angeles on January 15, 2009, while he was seeking to enter the United States. The case has been assigned to United States District Judge PAUL A. CROTTY. AMOS will be presented later today before U.S. Magistrate Judge DEBRA FREEMAN.
Mr. DASSIN praised the investigative work of the FBI in this case. He also thanked Citibank for its assistance in the investigation. Mr. DASSIN said the investigation is continuing.
This investigation is being handled by the Major Crimes Unit of the United States Attorney’s Office. Assistant United States Attorneys MARCUS A. ASNER and SEETHA RAMACHANDRAN are in charge of the prosecution.
The charges contained in the Indictment are merely accusations and the defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Ethiopia’s dictator Meles Zenawi and wife Azeb Mesfin should also be arrested and charged with looting the country’s national treasure.
By BENJAMIN WEISER | The New York Times
Swindles in which someone overseas seeks access to a person’s bank account are so well known that most potential victims can spot them in seconds.
But one man found success by tweaking the formula, prosecutors say: Rather than trying to dupe an account holder into giving up information, he duped the bank. And instead of swindling a person, he tried to rob a country — of $27 million.
To carry out the elaborate scheme, prosecutors in New York said on Friday, the man, identified as Paul Gabriel Amos, 37, a Nigerian citizen who lived in Singapore, worked with others to create official-looking documents that instructed Citibank to wire the money in two dozen transactions to accounts that Mr. Amos and the others controlled around the world.
The money came from a Citibank account in New York held by the National Bank of Ethiopia, that country’s central bank. Prosecutors said the conspirators, contacted by Citibank to verify the transactions, posed as Ethiopian bank officials and approved the transfers.
Mr. Amos was arrested last month as he tried to enter the United States through Los Angeles, a prosecutor, Marcus A. Asner, said in Federal District Court in Manhattan.
Mr. Amos, who was charged with one count of conspiracy to commit bank and wire fraud, told a federal magistrate judge, “I’m not guilty, sir.” The judge, Andrew J. Peck, ordered him detained pending a further hearing. If convicted, he could face up to 30 years in prison, prosecutors said.
The fraud was uncovered after several banks where the conspirators held accounts returned money to Citibank, saying they had been unable to process the transactions, and an official of the National Bank of Ethiopia said that it did not recognize the transactions, according to a complaint signed by an F.B.I. agent, Bryan Trebelhorn.
A Citigroup spokeswoman said: “We have worked closely with law enforcement throughout the investigation and are pleased it has resulted in this arrest. Citi constantly reviews and upgrades its physical, electronic and procedural safeguards to detect, prevent and mitigate theft.”
A spokesman for the Ethiopian Embassy in Washington said, “We are aware of this unfortunate story.” He said the embassy was not involved in the legal proceedings, and declined further comment. Officials at the National Bank of Ethiopia could not be reached by phone for comment.
Prosecutors said the scheme began in September, when Citibank received a package with documents purportedly signed by officials of the Ethiopian bank instructing Citibank to accept instructions by fax. There was also a list of officials who could be called to confirm such requests. The signatures of the officials appeared to match those in Citibank’s records and were accepted by Citibank, the complaint says.
In October, Citibank received two dozen faxed requests for money to be wired, and it transferred $27 million to accounts controlled by the conspirators in Japan, South Korea, Australia, China, Cyprus and the United States, the complaint says.
Citibank called the officials whose names and numbers it had been given to verify the transactions, prosecutors said. The numbers turned out to be for cellphones in Nigeria, South Africa and Britain used by the conspirators.
Citibank, in its investigation, later determined the package of documents had come via courier from Lagos, Nigeria, rather than from the offices of the National Bank of Ethiopia, in Addis Ababa.
Citibank has credited back the lost funds to the National Bank of Ethiopia, said one person who was briefed about the situation.
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AFP)–Clashes have broken out in the restive Ethiopian region of Ogaden, with rebels saying Friday they have killed 140 government troops and allied militia fighters.
The Ethiopian government Woyanne tribalist regime in Ethiopia disputed the claims from the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF), saying some 40 rebels were killed by local clan militia.
“The casualty figures heavily favored our forces due to the nature of our operations,” the rebels said in a statement, adding that they lost 29 fighters. “In particular, surprise attacks and ambushing enemy military convoys.”
Communications Propaganda Minister Bereket Simon told AFP that the insurgents “clashed with some of the clan inside Ogaden and the clans have beaten them well.”
The ONLF is fighting for the independence of ethnic Somalis in Ethiopia’s oil-rich Ogaden region. They say the local people have been marginalized by Addis Ababa.
Ethiopia’s The {www:Woyanne} military launched an offensive against ONLF after they attacked a Chinese-run oil venture in the Ogaden in 2007, killing 77 people, including nine Chinese nationals.
ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) – Six [fake] Ethiopian opposition parties formed an alliance on Thursday and accused the government of clamping down on dissent ahead of parliamentary elections next year.
[All this is orchestrated by the American embassy in Addis Ababa to give legitimacy to the Meles dictatorship.]
The alliance parties hold only 80 of parliament’s 547 seats, but still represent the most significant opposition to a government that is a close ally of Washington.
The new alliance includes the United Ethiopian Democratic Forces (UEDF) and the Unity for Democracy and Justice party (UDJ), whose jailed 34-year-old leader Birtukan Mideksa is seen by regional analysts as the foremost opposition figure.
“Violations of democratic rights come … at a time when the general election is only a few months away,” UEDF leader Beyene Petros told reporters in the capital Addis Ababa. “The political space (should be) made conducive for free and fair elections.”
[It is laughable to call Dr Beyene Petros an “opposition politician.”]
Analysts say the government of Prime Minister dictator Meles Zanawi is likely to win next year’s poll as the opposition has been weakened since a 2005 parliamentary election ended in violence that killed 199 civilians.
Bereket Simon, the government’s head of information propaganda, rejected opposition claims the scope for political activity in Ethiopia was too restricted as “baseless accusations”.
“The political space is continually widening. We welcome the forming of this alliance. We believe it is good for Ethiopian democracy to see parties with the same programmes forming together,” he told Reuters.
Ethiopian opposition parties routinely accuse the government of harassment and say their candidates were intimidated when Ethiopians went to the polls last April for local elections.
The six parties will contest next year’s election under the banner of the Forum for Democratic Dialogue in Ethiopia (FDEE), while maintaining their independent structure and leadership.
The FDEE called on Thursday for Birtukan to be freed from prison, along with “several other Ethiopians incarcerated on political grounds”. They did not name the other prisoners.
Birtukan has been in solitary confinement since December and went on hunger strike for 13 days last month. She was jailed after the 2005 poll, pardoned in 2007, and rearrested last year.
Gebru Asrat, leader of the Arena Tigray for Democracy and Sovereignty Party, will serve as chairman of the alliance.
The other parties are the Oromo Federalist Democratic Movement (OFDM), the Ethiopian Democratic Unity Movement (EDUM) and the Somali Democratic Alliance Forces (SDAF).
I am Kenyan-born and was raised in Tanzania, which is — with a population of about 35 million — the thirdlargest country in the world at risk of malaria. Malaria, a mosquito-borne disease, is the leading cause of death in Africa, killing almost 1 million people a year. Tanzania has 18 million cases of malaria and more than 100,000 deaths yearly — mostly children and pregnant women — meaning every five minutes a person dies from this preventable disease that can be treated at a cost of $10.
Despite the depressing reality of this forgotten disease, today Tanzania and other African nations can be optimistic that malaria can be controlled and may be virtually eliminated due to President Bush’s humanitarian initiative.
In 2005, Bush created the President’s Malaria Initiative, committing $1.2 billion, which started with Tanzania, Uganda, and Angola, and then targeted eight additional African countries. As a malaria survivor with family, classmates, and neighbors who died of malaria, tuberculosis, and HIV/AIDS in Tanzania and Kenya, I am especially thankful for the president’s aggressive humanitarian program that has saved hundreds of thousands of lives.
The malaria rate has dropped significantly more than the 50 percent benchmark in each country. For example, in Pemba and Zanzibar, Tanzania, the malaria rate dropped 87 percent — proving malaria can be controlled.
Since 2001, President Bush has been committed to supporting various causes in Africa. U.S. aid to Africa quadrupled from $1.3 billion to more than $5 billion in 2005 and to almost $9 billion for 2010, representing the largest increase since the Truman administration. The President’s Emergency Plan For Aids Relief has touched millions of Africans — making PEPFAR perhaps one of his greatest humanitarian successes. Today, the United States and the Bill Gates Foundation are the largest contributors toward fighting HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis.
Additionally, the president’s Millennium Challenge Corp. identified nine African countries to receive $3.8 billion for infrastructure and agriculture. The president also implemented an African Education Initiative training almost 1 million teachers, providing more than 10 million textbooks, and giving hundreds of thousands of scholarships for girls’ education.
President Bush strongly pressed the nations being assisted to address the scourge of government corruption, asserting that Americans “expect countries that we help to fight corruption and to govern justly. There is nothing more pitiful than to have people’s hopes robbed by corrupt government officials.”
In 1977 as a child on a crowded street in Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania, I was among thousands of people cheering on a hot day as Fidel Castro’s motorcade passed. Now as a U. S. citizen who supports democratic principles, I watched and cheered President Bush’s visit last year to several African countries, including now democratic Tanzania, as thousands of people lined the streets cheering, singing, dancing, waving American flags, throwing flowers in his path, and some hugging him with excitement.
Even though millions of people watched President Bush’s visit to Africa on television, few were aware of the significance and substance of the trip. The media seemed more interested in the festive events and the president’s dancing and joking than in the thousands of lives saved due to his novel humanitarian approach that has benefited African nations.
The Bush administration also played various other humanitarian roles and was a mediator that saved hundreds of thousands of lives in Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Liberia, Northern Uganda, Sierra Leone, and Sudan. Thus, it is no surprise that many newborn boys in Sudan are named “George Bush” and a day has been named George W. Bush Malaria Day in Benin.
Today, President Bush and the U. S. enjoy an 80 percent approval rating in Africa — including countries with a large Muslim population. Africa will remain a positive accomplishment of his administration. While some may not give President Bush full recognition, Africans throughout the world will long remember him and tell many success stories about George and Laura Bush’s extraordinary humanitarian legacy in Africa.
(Zarina Fazaldin, a local real estate developer, can be reached at 804 310-5051 or [email protected])
Troops from the Islamic Courts Union, a former insurgent group that now backs Somalia’s new president, have taken over {www:control} of checkpoints in the capital Mogadishu from government soldiers. The {www:development} comes as Ethiopian Woyanne troops, who patrolled the city for much of the past two years and began withdrawing from the country earlier this year, were reported crossing the {www:border} into Somalia again.
With much of southern and central Somalia under the control of hard-line Islamist insurgents opposed to the government, the immediate task for the country’s new moderate Islamist president, Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, is to re-establish {www:security} in the capital, Mogadishu.
On Thursday, the government took one step toward this goal, replacing the government forces manning checkpoints in the city, who had had been accused of attacking and stealing from civilians – with fighters belonging to the Islamic Courts Union, an insurgent group that has thrown its backing to President Sharif, a former insurgent leader.
A spokesman for the Islamic Courts Union, Isse Adow, said the group’s soldiers had taken over early in the day.
He said the president, earlier in the month, had established a committee to look into security issues, which found that government forces at security checkpoints often held people up, seeking to {www:extract} money. The committee recommended removing the government forces from the checkpoints.
Security remains an immense challenge in the capital. On Wednesday, an explosion in the city killed at least two people.
But the challenge of exerting government control over the rest of the country is even greater. The new prime minister, Omar Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke, repeated the government’s appeals for negotiations with the radical insurgent group al-Shabab, which controls much of the country’s central and southern regions.
There are some hopes that President Sharif can bring on board or marginalize the more radical Shabab. Both split from the same Islamist movement that briefly took control of the country in 2006.
A group of Islamic clerics who had been {www:meeting} in the capital issued a series of pronouncements Thursday, including that Muslims should not kill one another, and that Islamists opposed to the government should not use violence. But while other Islamist factions have entered discussions with the government, the Shabab has vowed to continue fighting.
The clerics also called for armed factions to stop targeting aid groups operating in the country; for foreign soldiers – most likely a reference to African Union peacekeepers – to leave the country by the beginning of July; and for a form of Islamic law to be established.
Meanwhile, Somali media has reported that Ethiopian Woyanne troops have crossed the border into southern Somalia, along with dozens of vehicles. Since withdrawing from the country earlier this year, Ethiopian Woyanne troops have remained deployed along the border, and Ethiopia’s prime minister dictator has indicated that soldiers could return if the threat of insecurity increases. But Ethiopia has denied any renewed incursions.
