LI­AT (2020) Ltd on Tues­day said that the com­pa­ny’s own­er­ship and op­er­a­tions have not been im­pact­ed fol­low­ing the de­ci­sion by the Unit­ed States law en­force­ment au­thor­i­ties to in­dict the chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer of the Nige­ria-based Air Peace Lim­it­ed, Dr. Allen Onye­ma, for ob­struc­tion of jus­tice.

Last week, the US At­tor­ney’s Of­fice, North­ern Dis­trict of Geor­gia said that Onye­ma, the chair­man, CEO, and founder of Air Peace Lim­it­ed, had been charged in a su­per­sed­ing in­dict­ment with ob­struc­tion of jus­tice for sub­mit­ting false doc­u­ments to the gov­ern­ment in an ef­fort to end an in­ves­ti­ga­tion of him that re­sult­ed in ear­li­er charges of bank fraud and mon­ey laun­der­ing.

The air­line’s chief of ad­min­is­tra­tion and fi­nance, Ejiroghene Eghagha, was al­so charged for par­tic­i­pat­ing in the ob­struc­tion scheme, as well as in the ear­li­er bank fraud counts.

In its state­ment, LI­AT (2020) Ltd said that in light of re­cent spec­u­la­tions and mis­in­for­ma­tion re­gard­ing the own­er­ship and struc­ture of LI­AT (2020), “we be­lieve it is im­por­tant to pro­vide clear and ac­cu­rate in­for­ma­tion to our val­ued cus­tomers, part­ners, and stake­hold­ers.

“At LI­AT (2020) Ltd, trans­paren­cy and our com­mit­ment to re­gion­al con­nec­tiv­i­ty re­mains at the fore­front of our op­er­a­tions,” it said, adding that “this state­ment serves to ad­dress any mis­con­cep­tions and reaf­firm our ded­i­ca­tion to de­liv­er­ing ex­cep­tion­al cus­tomer ex­pe­ri­ence across the Caribbean”.

The state­ment said LI­AT (2020), is a lo­cal com­pa­ny in­cor­po­rat­ed un­der the Laws of An­tigua and Bar­bu­da and is a joint ven­ture be­tween be­tween the An­tigua and Bar­bu­da gov­ern­ment (GOAB) and Air Peace Caribbean Lim­it­ed (AP­CL), an­oth­er lo­cal com­pa­ny in­cor­po­rat­ed un­der the laws of the is­land.

It said that the share­hold­ing struc­ture is 30 per cent for the GOAB and 70 per cent for AP­CL.

“It is im­por­tant to clar­i­fy that AP­CL is an en­tire­ly sep­a­rate en­ti­ty from Air Peace Nige­ria Ltd. Mr. Allen Onye­ma, the CEO of Air Peace Nige­ria Ltd, holds no shares, di­rec­tor­ship, nor is he in­volved in AP­CL or LI­AT (2020) Ltd,” the state­ment added.

LI­AT (2020) said it want­ed to re­as­sure its stake­hold­ers, that the com­pa­ny’s own­er­ship and op­er­a­tions have not been im­pact­ed by the in­cor­rect spec­u­la­tions re­gard­ing Onye­ma, adding “we em­pha­sise that Mr. Onye­ma has no own­er­ship stake in LI­AT (2020) Ltd, and such claims are com­plete­ly un­found­ed as they do not ex­ist.

“As we con­tin­ue our mis­sion to pro­vide re­li­able flight ser­vices through­out the re­gion, we are grate­ful for the on­go­ing sup­port of our cus­tomers, stake­hold­ers and part­ners. We re­main com­mit­ted to de­liv­er­ing the best, ex­cep­tion­al cus­tomer ex­pe­ri­ence, as we strive to con­nect the Caribbean and SOAR,” the state­ment added.

In a state­ment post­ed on its of­fi­cial X plat­form, Air Peace said its two se­nior of­fi­cials re­main in­no­cent of the charges filed against them by the US De­part­ment of Jus­tice (DOJ, adding that the charges stemmed from ear­li­er ac­cu­sa­tions. It as­sured its cus­tomers that the court process­es would not af­fect the air­line’s op­er­a­tions.

Air Peace said it is aware of the re­cent me­dia re­ports con­cern­ing its two se­nior of­fi­cials, adding “we un­der­stand that this may have raised con­cerns, and we wish to ad­dress these re­ports di­rect­ly.

“These charges lev­elled against our post-hold­ers are part of an ex­tend­ed le­gal process stem­ming from ear­li­er ac­cu­sa­tions of fi­nan­cial mis­deeds that date back sev­er­al years.

“While the charges have been ex­pand­ed, it is es­sen­tial to em­pha­sise that both Dr. Onye­ma and Mrs. Eghagha re­main in­no­cent and these are mere al­le­ga­tions, and the case is still in court.” (CMC)

Pros­e­cu­tion’s case

The fol­low­ing is an ex­cerpt from a news re­lease is­sued by US At­tor­ney’s Of­fice for the North­ern Dis­trict of Geor­gia on Oc­to­ber 11, con­cern­ing the charges against the two se­nior of­fi­cers of Air Peace Ltd

AT­LANTA – Allen Onye­ma, the Chair­man, CEO, and founder of Air Peace, a Niger­ian air­line, has been charged in a su­per­sed­ing in­dict­ment with ob­struc­tion of jus­tice for sub­mit­ting false doc­u­ments to the gov­ern­ment in an ef­fort to end an in­ves­ti­ga­tion of him that re­sult­ed in ear­li­er charges of bank fraud and mon­ey laun­der­ing. Ejiroghene Eghagha, the air­line’s Chief of Ad­min­is­tra­tion and Fi­nance, was al­so charged for par­tic­i­pat­ing in the ob­struc­tion scheme, as well as in the ear­li­er bank fraud counts.

Ac­cord­ing to US At­tor­ney Buchanan, the su­per­sed­ing in­dict­ment, and oth­er in­for­ma­tion pre­sent­ed in court: Onye­ma, a Niger­ian cit­i­zen and busi­ness­man, is the CEO and chair­man of Air Peace, a Niger­ian air­line found­ed in 2013.

“Af­ter al­leged­ly us­ing his air­line com­pa­ny as a cov­er to com­mit fraud on the Unit­ed States’ bank­ing sys­tem, Onye­ma, along with his co-de­fen­dant, al­leged­ly com­mit­ted ad­di­tion­al crimes of fraud in a failed at­tempt to de­rail the gov­ern­ment’s in­ves­ti­ga­tion of his con­duct,” said U.S. At­tor­ney Ryan K. Buchanan. “The dili­gence of our fed­er­al in­ves­tiga­tive part­ners re­vealed the de­fen­dants’ al­leged ob­struc­tion scheme, mak­ing it pos­si­ble for the de­fen­dants to be held ac­count­able for their ag­gra­vat­ed con­duct of at­tempt­ing to im­pede a fed­er­al in­ves­ti­ga­tion.”

“These cas­es rep­re­sent the con­tin­ued com­mit­ment of the Drug En­force­ment Ad­min­is­tra­tion to iden­ti­fy and hold ac­count­able those who en­gaged in fraud and mon­ey laun­der­ing,” said Robert J. Mur­phy, Spe­cial Agent in Charge of the DEA At­lanta Di­vi­sion.

“Al­leged­ly, Onye­ma and his ac­com­plices fraud­u­lent­ly used the U.S. bank­ing sys­tem in an ef­fort to hide the source of their ill-got­ten mon­ey,” said As­sis­tant Spe­cial Agent in Charge Lisa Fontanette, In­ter­nal Rev­enue Ser­vice - Crim­i­nal In­ves­ti­ga­tion At­lanta Field Of­fice. “To­day’s su­per­sed­ing in­dict­ment is in­dica­tive of the ded­i­ca­tion IRS-CI spe­cial agents and our law en­force­ment part­ners have, as part of the Or­ga­nized Crime Drug En­force­ment Task Forces, to neu­tralise threats to the Unit­ed States from crim­i­nal or­gan­i­sa­tions.”

“The charges an­nounced to­day demon­strate the crit­i­cal­i­ty of dili­gence and truth in crim­i­nal jus­tice pro­ceed­ings,” said Steven N. Schrank, Act­ing Spe­cial Agent in Charge, Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty In­ves­ti­ga­tions At­lanta that cov­ers Geor­gia and Al­aba­ma. “HSI and our part­ners are com­mit­ted to pur­su­ing those who seek to ex­ploit our na­tion’s fi­nan­cial sys­tem and any ef­forts to cov­er up il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ty.”

Be­tween 2010 and 2018, Onye­ma trav­elled fre­quent­ly to At­lanta, where he opened sev­er­al per­son­al and busi­ness bank ac­counts. More than US$44.9 mil­lion was al­leged­ly trans­ferred in­to his At­lanta-based ac­counts from for­eign sources.

Be­gin­ning in ap­prox­i­mate­ly May 2016, Onye­ma, to­geth­er with Eghagha, al­leged­ly used a se­ries of ex­port let­ters of cred­it to cause banks to trans­fer more than US$20 mil­lion in­to At­lanta-based bank ac­counts con­trolled by Onye­ma. The let­ters of cred­it were pur­port­ed­ly to fund the pur­chase of five sep­a­rate Boe­ing 737 pas­sen­ger planes by Air Peace and were sup­port­ed by doc­u­ments such as pur­chase agree­ments, bills of sale, and ap­praisals. The doc­u­ments pur­port­ed to show that Air Peace was pur­chas­ing the air­craft from Spring­field Avi­a­tion Com­pa­ny LLC, a busi­ness reg­is­tered in Geor­gia.

How­ev­er, the sup­port­ing doc­u­ments were al­leged­ly fake – Spring­field Avi­a­tion Com­pa­ny LLC was owned by Onye­ma and man­aged on his be­half by a per­son with no con­nec­tion to the avi­a­tion busi­ness, and Spring­field Avi­a­tion nev­er owned the air­craft. The com­pa­ny that al­leged­ly draft­ed the ap­praisals did not ex­ist. Eghagha al­leged­ly par­tic­i­pat­ed in this scheme as well, di­rect­ing the Spring­field Avi­a­tion man­ag­er to sign and send false doc­u­ments to banks and even us­ing the man­ag­er’s iden­ti­ty to fur­ther the fraud. Af­ter Onye­ma re­ceived the mon­ey in the Unit­ed States, he al­leged­ly laun­dered over US$16 mil­lion of the pro­ceeds of the fraud by trans­fer­ring it to oth­er ac­counts.

In May 2019, up­on dis­cov­er­ing that he was un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion in the North­ern Dis­trict of Geor­gia for bank fraud, Onye­ma and Eghagha al­leged­ly di­rect­ed the Spring­field Avi­a­tion man­ag­er to sign a key busi­ness con­tract, but al­so specif­i­cal­ly told her to not date the doc­u­ment. In Oc­to­ber 2019, Onye­ma al­leged­ly caused his at­tor­neys to present that same con­tract, now false­ly dat­ed as be­ing signed on May 5, 2016 (pri­or to the bank fraud that be­gan in 2016), to the gov­ern­ment in an ef­fort to stop the in­ves­ti­ga­tion and un­freeze his bank ac­counts.

Onye­ma, 61, of La­gos, Nige­ria, and Ejiroghene Eghagha, 42, of La­gos, Nige­ria, were in­dict­ed on No­vem­ber 19, 2019, on one count of con­spir­a­cy to com­mit bank fraud, three counts of bank fraud, one count of con­spir­a­cy to com­mit cred­it ap­pli­ca­tion fraud, and three counts of cred­it ap­pli­ca­tion fraud. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, Onye­ma was charged with 27 counts of mon­ey laun­der­ing, and Eghagha was charged with one count of ag­gra­vat­ed iden­ti­ty theft.

On Oc­to­ber 8, 2024, they were both charged in a su­per­sed­ing in­dict­ment al­leg­ing an ad­di­tion­al count of ob­struc­tion of jus­tice and one count of con­spir­a­cy to ob­struct jus­tice. The case is crim­i­nal ac­tion num­ber 1:19-CR-464.

Mem­bers of the pub­lic are re­mind­ed that the in­dict­ments on­ly con­tain charges. The de­fen­dants are pre­sumed in­no­cent of the charges and it will be the gov­ern­ment’s bur­den to prove the de­fen­dants’ guilt be­yond a rea­son­able doubt at tri­al.

The Drug En­force­ment Ad­min­is­tra­tion, In­ter­nal Rev­enue Ser­vice Crim­i­nal In­ves­ti­ga­tion, U.S. Im­mi­gra­tion and Cus­toms En­force­ment’s Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty In­ves­ti­ga­tions, Fed­er­al Avi­a­tion Ad­min­is­tra­tion, De­part­ment of Com­merce, and De­part­ment of Trea­sury are in­ves­ti­gat­ing this case.

As­sis­tant U.S. At­tor­neys Gar­rett L. Brad­ford and Christo­pher J. Hu­ber are pros­e­cut­ing the case.

This ef­fort is part of an Or­ga­nized Crime Drug En­force­ment Task Forces (OCDETF) op­er­a­tion. OCDETF iden­ti­fies, dis­rupts, and dis­man­tles the high­est-lev­el crim­i­nal or­gan­i­sa­tions that threat­en the Unit­ed States us­ing a pros­e­cu­tor-led, in­tel­li­gence-dri­ven, mul­ti-agency ap­proach. Ad­di­tion­al in­for­ma­tion about the OCDETF Pro­gram can be found at https://www.jus­tice.gov/OCDETF.