(The Center Square) – Instead of working with a woman, a North Carolina man was actually an agent for a Nigerian man trying to hide money transactions.
Sentencing for money laundering of more than $2.8 million includes five years in prison in a plea agreement for Derrick Davis of Concord. He pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering and one count of aggravated identity theft.
Prosecutors say the 51-year-old got law enforcement’s attention when $120,000 was wired into his bank account, then withdrawn immediately. A victim in the scam thought a home purchase was in the works; it was not, and the victim lost out on the home and thousands of dollars, a release from the U.S. attorney’s office in the eastern district of the state says.
After a probe, lawmen determined Davis laundered $2,886,578 over three years – all the while thinking it was a woman, not a man in Nigeria. Davis picked up 43 debit cards in other people’s names, and sent the images to the Nigerian, prosecutors said.
The release says, “Davis continued to launder the money even after explicitly being informed by law enforcement that the money he was moving was from criminal activity.”
Davis appeared in a Wilmington federal courtroom before U.S. District Judge Richard E. Myers II.
