Anslem Oshionebo, the CEO of Ping Express, and Opeyemi Odeyale, the COO of Ping, are both Nigerian-born executives who pled guilty to failing to maintain an adequate anti-money laundering program.
Aleoghena Okhumale, the IT/Business Development Manager at Ping, entered a guilty plea to intentionally conveying illegally obtained cash.
According to the US Department of Justice, the IT/Business Development Manager received a 42-month prison term. At the same time, the CEO and COO were recently given sentences of 27 months in federal prison each.
Oshionebo, a former senior manager at PwC, reportedly stated in an email that “history will be the best judge” because he lacked the means to pursue the case further. COO Odeyale asserted “grave violations” in the case against him on his end.
According to the US Department of Justice (DoJ), Ping’s anti-money laundering policies claimed to cap first-time customer transactions to $499, daily transactions at $3,000, and monthly transactions at $4,500. In court documents, the corporation acknowledged that “more than 1,500 clients violated these restrictions.” Part of the statement read, “In one instance, Ping let a customer remit more than $80,000 in a single month—17 times more than the claimed limit.
A $500,000 fine and up to five years of probation are penalties for the Ping Express company alone.
In 2013, Ping COO Odeyale established Payzen Limited, formerly Clicks FX Limited, an electronic money business with UK registration. He gave up his majority ownership in Payzen in December 2020, nearly ten months after US DoJ investigators formally prosecuted him for failing to maintain an efficient AML program and conducting business illegally. Even though the UK company was not referenced in the US lawsuit, documents on the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) website in the UK reveal that Payzen also does business as Ping Express. Adekanmi Adedire, the current Payzen controlling shareholder, told Bloomberg that Ping Express is a “completely distinct organization” and that his company is “unrelated” to it. Payzen’s website, on the other hand, is still listed as ping-express.com on FCA’s online database.
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