FRESNO, Calif. — Jafaar September Nyangoro, 53, of Franklin, Tennessee, pleaded guilty today to conspiracy to commit wire fraud related to a scheme to defraud Fresno County, U.S. Attorney Eric Grant announced.
According to court documents, sometime before Sept. 14, 2020, Nyangoro, co‑defendant Peter Bah Acha, 46, of Berlin, Germany, and others secretly gained control of an email account used by the finance director of a Fresno nonprofit to submit fraudulent invoices to Fresno County for payment through Automated Clearing House (ACH) transactions. Posing as the finance director, they fraudulently represented to the County of Fresno that the nonprofit’s bank account information had changed and that payments should be sent to an account at a different bank that Nyangoro had recently opened. Believing that they were communicating with the legitimate nonprofit business, the county employees updated the nonprofit’s bank account information accordingly.
According to court documents, between Sept. 24, 2020, and Oct. 13, 2020, the County of Fresno initiated several ACH transfers totaling more than $1.5 million to Nyangoro’s bank account instead of the nonprofit’s bank account. At times, Nyangoro, Acha, and others communicated with each other through various means, including WhatsApp. For example, on Oct. 16, 2020, after Regions Bank reversed some of the ACH transfers for suspected fraud, Nyangoro sent a WhatsApp message: “We’re in deep s***. The last 3 transactions from County of Fresno have been reversed. Please call me ASAP!”
The Federal Bureau of Investigation conducted the investigation. Assistant U.S. Attorneys David L. Gappa and Cody Chapple are prosecuting the case.
Nyangoro is scheduled to be sentenced by U.S. District Judge Jennifer L. Thurston on Sept. 21, 2026. Nyangoro faces a maximum statutory penalty of 20 years in prison and a fine up to $250,000 as well as restitution. The actual sentence, however, will be determined at the discretion of the court after consideration of any applicable statutory factors and the federal Sentencing Guidelines, which take into account a number of variables.
Source: U.S. Attorney’s Office — Eastern District of California — U.S. Department of Justice press release.