A U.S. federal court has sentenced Ghanaian national Derrick Van Yeboah to 85 months in prison for helping orchestrate a multimillion-dollar international fraud scheme that stole more than $100 million from victims.
Derrick Van Yeboah, 41, also known as “Van,” was sentenced on July 28, 2026, by U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian after pleading guilty in March 2026 to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud.
Announcing the sentence, U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton said the fraud ring exploited victims’ trust and emotions for financial gain.
“Romance scammers do not simply steal money, they weaponise trust. Van Yeboah and his co-conspirators exploited trust, loneliness, and legitimate business relationships to steal more than $100 million.
Today’s sentence reflects the seriousness of these calculated frauds and our commitment to pursuing international criminal organisations that target Americans.”
According to U.S. court documents, Van Yeboah was part of a Ghana-based criminal organisation that carried out two major types of fraud.
The group targeted victims through online romance scams, where fraudsters built fake romantic relationships before requesting money, and business email compromise schemes, where they impersonated company executives to trick businesses into transferring funds.
Many of the victims were elderly men and women who believed they were in genuine online relationships with people using false identities.
The syndicate stole and laundered more than $100 million from dozens of victims, with the proceeds transferred to West Africa.
Prosecutors said Van Yeboah was personally responsible for stealing more than $10 million. Between 2019 and 2020, he used fake identities to convince women in Ohio and Delaware to send about $4.2 million to accounts controlled by the criminal network.
In another case in 2024, he persuaded a man in North Carolina to send about $123,000 after falsely claiming he needed money for a parent’s funeral and to recover gold and diamonds from Italy.
In addition to his prison sentence, Van Yeboah was ordered to serve two years of supervised release and forfeit $10,149,429.17.
He was extradited from Ghana to the United States on August 7, 2025, following a joint operation involving the U.S. Department of Justice and several Ghanaian institutions, including the Office of the Attorney-General, the Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO), the Ghana Police Service’s INTERPOL unit, the Cyber Security Authority, and the National Intelligence Bureau.
The case was prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York’s Complex Frauds and Cybercrime Unit.
