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(Sioux City, IA) -- A Virginia man who laundered nearly $1 million in Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) funds pled guilty on February 8, 2022, in federal court in Sioux City. Thirty-one-year-old Benjamin Sakyi, of Dumfries, Virginia, formerly of Ghana, was convicted of one count of money laundering conspiracy.
The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (“CARES”) Act is a federal law enacted in late March 2020 that provided emergency financial assistance, including Paycheck Protection Program (“PPP”) and Economic Injury Disaster Loan (“EIDL”) funds, to Americans suffering conomic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Evidence at the plea hearing, and a prior detention hearing in Virginia, showed that Sakyi received over $900,000 in fraudulently obtained CARES Act funds at three different financial institutions in the names of two Virginia corporations, Blue Flight Logistics LLC and NKB Enterprise LLC.
Sakyi then transferred the funds elsewhere. Sakyi received the CARES Act funds from a Minnesota man, Donald Franklin Trosin, formerly of Armstrong, Iowa. Trosin had submitted over 20 fraudulent PPP and EIDL loan applications to the Small Business Administration in the name of Trosin and another individual at Minnesota and Iowa financial institutions. Trosin falsely represented he had 120 employees on his payroll and over $5 million in payroll expenses. Investigators say Trosin did not operate a business at all.
Sakyi remains in custody of the United States Marshal pending sentencing. Sakyi faces a possible maximum sentence of 20 years’ imprisonment, a $500,000 fine, and three years of supervised release following any imprisonment. In July 2021, the district court sentenced Trosin to 40 months in federal prison for his role in the money laundering conspiracy.