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Description: Greenbelt, Maryland criminal defense lawyer represented defendant charged with money laundering.

From October 2015 to January 2017, Brandon Ross, a/k/a “Shaba X”, age 33, of Los Angeles, California, Peter Unakalu, Khalid Razaq, Saul Eady, Troy Barbour, and others participated in a scheme to launder proceeds of criminal activity by fraudulently obtaining technology-related merchandise without payment and selling the merchandise in furtherance of the money laundering scheme.

As part of the scheme to defraud, Ross convinced three technology-related companies (victim companies) that his co-conspirators were authorized to make purchase agreements and then caused the victim companies to ship specialized communications equipment, cell phones, computers, and large screen televisions to co-conspirators without payment. Ross and his co-conspirators subsequently sold or disposed of the fraudulently obtained property after receiving them. These transactions were designed to conceal the true nature, location, source, and ownership of the unlawful proceeds.

It was further part of the conspiracy that Ross received the fraudulently obtained proceeds and engaged in a series of bank and wire transfers to his co-conspirators in the effort to conceal the criminal nature of the scheme. For example, on November 28, 2016, Ross deposited $7,500 in cash into Razaq’s bank account. Then on December 2, 2016, Ross wired $2,955 to Unakalu, who was located in Nigeria, and falsely reported that it was for family support. Additionally, in January and February 2017, Barbour paid a Maryland-based moving company to transport flat-screen televisions from Virginia to California. On March 1, 2017, Ross provided Razaq $108,570 in cash as Razaq’s share of the proceeds from the scheme.

Based on bank records, the value of the goods, surveillance footage, and financial and business records from the victim companies, the loss to the three victim companies was more than $1,500,000.

United States Attorney Erek L. Barron praised the DOD-OIG and HSI for their work on the investigation. Mr. Barron thanked the FBI, the U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Industry and Security, Office of Export Enforcement, the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, and Customs and Border Protection for their work in the investigation. Mr. Barron thanked Assistant U.S. Attorneys Joseph R. Baldwin and Adam K. Ake, who prosecuted the case.

18:1956(h) MONEY LAUNDERING CONSPIRACY
(2s)

Outcome: Defendant was sentenced to 18 months in prison, followed by three years of supervised release, for a large-scale money laundering conspiracy. He was ordered to pay $1,500,000 in restitution.

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