Dr Papa Kwesi Nduom and family members have been sued for shocking acts of statutory violations, money laundering, wire fraud, breach of contract, negligence, outright fraud, deceit and related criminal acts perpetrated by United States District Court Northern District of Illinois.
He was also sued for operating several sham companies in Ghana and in the US.
According to the court, plaintiff’s assignors, like many similarly situated depositors of defendants Gold Coast Fund Management and GN Bank, are victims of defendants’ fraudulent, avaricious and criminal conduct perpetrated on more than a million unsuspecting depositors who have lost their life savings because of defendants’ unlawful acts.
The Plaintiff, BIRIM GROUP, LLC, a California Limited Liability Company, alleged that Nduom Family defendants1, aided and abetted by each of the other defendants, engaged in a course of racketeering conduct predicated on illegal monetary transactions, money laundering, wire and mail fraud.
Defendants were motivated by nothing more than greed and self-aggrandizement. They used the stolen money to fund eponymous vanity projects such as a sports Stadium, a University, a Foundation and a Soccer Club.
Defendants’ actions not only cost depositors their life savings and untold hardship; they have contributed significantly to a serious on-going financial crisis in the Republic of Ghana.
The Nduom family defendants, by and through their ownership, control and use of defendants GN Bank, Gold Coast Fund Management and over 60 undercapitalized interrelated companies, collected several million dollars of depositors’ savings, investment contributions and insurance premiums and, in violation of U.S. and Ghana laws, illegally laundered approximately $63,000,000 (Sixty Three Million Dollars) of depositors’ funds through its Virginia-based sham “procurement and consulting service” company, International Business Solutions, LLC (hereinafter, IBS).
The court says, believing the U. S. to be a safe haven for the proceeds of their fraud, the criminal scheme involved, among other things, the transfer – through the instrumentality of the international money wire system – of inflated, over-invoiced and above-market rate fees disguised as payment for “management services” to defendant IBS. In fact, IBS is nothing but a shell company with an industrial zone store front office, no staff and a bare bones 4-page website created solely to facilitate the Nduom defendants’ fraud.
Plaintiff is informed and believes and alleges that all or a significant portion of the converted and illegally laundered depositor funds, including those assigned to plaintiff, were used for the personal benefit of the defendants to acquire assets, including the Illinois Service Federal Bank, which, consistent with the Nduom family’s self-aggrandizement, was promptly renamed Groupe Nduom Bank.
