A United States federal court has sentenced a 41-year-old Ghanaian man to 85 months in prison for his role in a transnational cybercrime syndicate that defrauded victims of more than $100 million through romance scams and business email compromise schemes.
Derrick Van Yeboah, also known as “Van,” was sentenced on Monday, July 27, by U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian after pleading guilty in March 2026 to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Prosecutors identified him as one of the leaders of the Ghana-based criminal network.
Announcing the sentence, U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton said the scheme went beyond financial crime, describing it as a calculated operation that exploited victims’ trust and emotional vulnerability.
“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,” he said.
According to court filings, the syndicate operated primarily from Ghana and relied on two sophisticated fraud models. One involved cultivating fake online romantic relationships to persuade victims to send money, while the other centred on business email compromise schemes, in which fraudsters impersonated company executives to deceive businesses into transferring funds.
Investigators said the organisation targeted dozens of victims, many of them elderly men and women who believed they were in genuine online relationships. The proceeds of the fraud, estimated at more than $100 million, were subsequently laundered and transferred to West Africa.
Prosecutors held Van Yeboah personally accountable for more than $10 million in fraudulent proceeds. Court records indicate that between 2019 and 2020, he used false identities to convince women in Ohio and Delaware to transfer about $4.2 million into accounts controlled by the criminal network.
Authorities also linked him to another scam in 2024, in which he persuaded a man in North Carolina to send approximately $123,000 after falsely claiming he needed money to finance a parent’s funeral and recover gold and diamonds from Italy.
In addition to the prison sentence, the court ordered Van Yeboah to serve two years of supervised release upon completion of his jail term. He was also directed to forfeit $10,149,429.17.
Van Yeboah 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 state 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 prosecution was handled by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York through its Complex Frauds and Cybercrime Unit.
