Former Maryland CU Assistant Branch Manager Sentenced

U.S. District Court Judge Paul W. Grimm in Greenbelt, Md., sentenced a former credit union assistant branch manager to one day in jail and 18 months of home confinement on Tuesday for her role in a fraudulent scheme to steal nearly $340,000 from a member’s account.

Judge Grimm also ordered Valerie Hughes to pay $390,000 in restitution and to three years of supervised release following her home confinement, according to court records.

In February 2017, Hughes, while working at the $352 million Nymeo Federal Credit Union in Frederick, Md., was approached by co-conspirators Samuel Attakora and Kelvin Asare to participate in the fraud scheme, claiming they had done it before and had never been caught. They also promised her $80,000 to help them carry out the scheme, federal prosecutors said in court records.

They persuaded Hughes to identify dormant member accounts and provide the name, address, Social Security number, date of birth, current balance, account number and phone number for the accounts. Court documents showed Hughes identified at least two credit union accounts that could be used in the scheme.

In February 2017, another co-conspirator, Kokou Azianbidji, arrived at Nymeo’s Gaithersburg, Md., branch and handed Hughes a completed wire transfer form requesting the transfer of $327,000 from a credit union member’s account to a Wells Fargo business account held by a third co-conspirator, Francis Arthur. Azianbidji also gave Hughes a counterfeit Maryland driver’s license bearing his photo. Once the wire transfer was completed, he withdrew $6,000 from the credit union member’s account, which was processed by Hughes, court documents showed.

In March 2017, Azianbidji returned to Nymeo’s Gaithersburg branch and requested an $80,000 wire transfer from the same credit union member’s account to the Wells Fargo business account held by Arthur. Azianbidji also requested a $6,000 withdrawal from this account, which again was processed by Hughes, according to court documents.

However, the wire transfer was not authorized because another Nymeo employee recognized that Azianbidji was not the credit union member who held that account.

Prosecutors said the conspirators transferred, withdrew cash and issued cashiers’ checks with the money they stole, and purchased motor vehicles in an attempt to conceal that the funds were derived from the fraud scheme.

Court documents did not say whether Hughes received the $80,000 she was promised for participating in the scheme.

Court records showed in 2019, Azianbidji was sentenced to 44 months in prison, Asare was sentenced to 25 months in prison and Arthur was sentenced in May to 12 months and a day in prison. They were also ordered to pay $339,000 in restitution.

A fourth conspirator, Samuel Attakora, who pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit bank fraud in 2018, is awaiting sentencing, court records showed.

A fifth person, Gifty Amponsah, who was indicted for conspiracy to commit bank fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering and money laundering. Prosecutors dropped those charges in 2019, after Amponsah agreed to pay $104,000 in restitution to the credit union, according to court documents.