Recent claims that a US court has acquitted Allen Onyema, CEO of Nigeria’s Air Peace airline, of fraud charges are untrue, according to a detailed report by AFP Fact Check. Onyema was indicted once again by a US district court in October 2024, five years after initial charges of bank fraud and money laundering were filed against him in 2019. Despite widespread social media posts asserting his acquittal, the court confirmed that Onyema’s charges remain active.
On October 22, 2024, posts circulated widely on X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, and Instagram, claiming that the District Court in Atlanta had exonerated Onyema of fraud charges. These reports, some of which cited Nigerian law firm Augustine Alegeh & Co., incorrectly stated that the court had fined a former employee $4,000 while clearing Onyema of charges. Augustine Alegeh & Co. had previously shared that “no bank suffered financial loss” in the case, but they did not claim an acquittal for Onyema, according to AFP’s analysis .
Court documents from Atlanta show Onyema and his chief financial officer, Ejiroghene Eghagha, face a total of 38 charges involving conspiracy, money laundering, bank fraud, credit application fraud, and identity theft. These include accusations of using Air Peace to conduct fraudulent transactions in the US financial system, allegedly transferring over $20 million from Nigeria to US bank accounts under the guise of purchasing aircraft .
This latest misinformation echoes similar claims from 2022, when Nigerian newspaper The Guardian inaccurately reported that Onyema had been cleared of charges. After the recent viral claims, Nigerian news outlets, including TheNation and Business Day, removed similar articles from their websites following public criticism.
In an October 11, 2024, statement, the US Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Georgia announced two additional fraud charges against Onyema. US Attorney Ryan K. Buchanan commented that these new charges reflected “additional crimes of fraud” in an attempt to obstruct ongoing investigations into Onyema’s conduct. AFP Fact Check also confirmed with the Atlanta court that Onyema’s case remains unresolved, stating, “The Court’s current docket report for case no. 1:19-cr-00464 does not reflect any acquittal.”
Both Onyema and Eghagha face potential extradition to the US from Nigeria, though no formal extradition request has yet been confirmed.
