CINCINNATI – Nii A. Tei, 47, of Cincinnati, was sentenced in U.S. District Court to 48 months in prison for structuring financial transactions to evade reporting requirements. Tei was also ordered to pay approximately $161,000 in restitution to the Small Business Administration and forfeit bank account balances, currency, watches and other items seized by law enforcement pursuant to warrants obtained during the investigation.
According to court documents, Tei held himself out as someone who could prepare PPP loan applications for others for pay. In the PPP loan applications Tei prepared, he inflated the average monthly payroll and number of employees associated with each business. Tei charged substantial fees for preparing PPP applications.
In total, Tei submitted more than 60 PPP loan applications and lenders funded 30 of them, with a total value of more than $1.2 million. Tei earned between $1,500 and $7,000 per loan and spent his proceeds on travel, luxury goods and foreign remittances.
In August 2020, Tei structured proceeds from this scheme at his bank in Cincinnati in an attempt to conceal the source of these funds and evade reporting requirements to the federal government.
He was charged federally in September 2022 and pleaded guilty in April 2024.
Kenneth L. Parker, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio; Lesley C. Allison, Inspector in Charge, United States Postal Inspection Service (USPIS); Yvonne Dicristoforo, Special Agent in Charge, United States Secret Service; and other members of the Financial Crime Working Group Pandemic Fraud Subcommittee announced the sentence imposed on Oct. 31 by Senior U.S. District Court Judge Susan J. Dlott. Assistant United States Attorney Ebunoluwa A. Taiwo is representing the United States in this case.
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