A United States court has sentenced Ghanaian national Derrick Van Yeboah, popularly known as “Van,” to 85 months (more than seven years) in prison for his leading role in an international criminal syndicate that defrauded victims of more than $100 million through romance scams and business email compromise schemes.
Van Yeboah, identified by U.S. authorities as one of the “Chairmen” of the notorious criminal organization known as “The Enterprise,” was sentenced on July 28, 2026, by U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian after pleading guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud.
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, Van Yeboah and his co-conspirators targeted vulnerable individuals and businesses across the United States by exploiting trust, loneliness, and legitimate business relationships to steal and launder more than $100 million.
“Romance scammers do not simply steal money—they weaponize trust,” U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton said in a statement.
“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 organizations that target Americans,” he added.
Investigators said Van Yeboah personally orchestrated several romance scams by posing as fake romantic partners online to manipulate victims into sending money.
Court documents revealed that between 2019 and 2020, he deceived an Ohio woman and a Delaware woman into transferring approximately $4.2 million to accounts controlled by members of the criminal enterprise.
In another scheme in 2024, Van Yeboah allegedly assumed another fake identity to scam a North Carolina man into sending about $123,000 after falsely claiming he needed money to pay for a parent’s funeral and recover gold and diamonds from Italy.
U.S. prosecutors held Van Yeboah directly responsible for stealing more than $10 million through romance fraud.
In addition to the prison sentence, the 41-year-old Ghanaian was handed two years of supervised release and ordered to forfeit $10,149,429.17.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office praised the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) for leading the investigation and acknowledged the support of Ghanaian authorities in securing Van Yeboah’s extradition to the United States on August 7, 2025.
Among the Ghanaian institutions commended for their assistance were the Office of the Attorney-General’s International Cooperation Unit, the Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO), the Ghana Police Service-INTERPOL, the Cyber Security Authority, and the National Intelligence Bureau.
The case was prosecuted by the Complex Frauds and Cybercrime Unit of the U.S. Attorney’s Office, with Assistant U.S. Attorneys Kevin Mead and Mitzi Steiner leading the prosecution.
