Money laundering suspects out on bond

A federal judge on Wednesday released two local men on bond following their indictment Tuesday on charges of laundering money stolen from a retired Maryland couple.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Cynthia Reed Eddy warned Ismail Shitu of Brookline and Nathanael Nyamekye of Chippewa not to leave their homes without permission or they’ll go back to jail.

The judge released the men on $50,000 bonds and placed them on home detention with satellite monitoring.

The detention means Mr. Shitu, 35, will have to find another job because he can’t continue in his current one as an Uber driver.

Judge Eddy also told Mr. Nyamekye, 34, who owns and purportedly operates a tire shop in Aliquippa, that he has to produce some evidence that the place is a real business before she’ll let him work there.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Todd Eberle said an FBI search of the property, Remy Tire Mart, on Friday turned up no records indicating it’s a real business.

“It appears to the government to be a front for money laundering,”he said.

Mr. Nyamekye’s lawyer, Randall McKinney, said the shop is legitimate, that employees are working on cars there, that he can produce receipts and that his client has paid his business taxes each year. Judge Eddy said the U.S. probation office will determine if that is true and whether Mr. Nyamekye will be allowed to go there pending trial.

Both men are accused of laundering $411,000 stolen from the Maryland couple after they sold their home in 2016.

The men, both originally from Ghana, were the targets of raids on Friday by the FBI, immigration agents and local police on their residences and the tire shop on Main Street.

The FBI said the two are among a close-knit group of criminals who fleeced the couple in Rockville, Md., out of the money they hoped to receive from the sale of their house.

Agents said the suspects carried out the fraud through a series of fake emails and a fax in which they first posed as a real estate agent and then as the couple to get their hands on the $411,000. About $50,000 of that has been returned to the couple, but the rest is missing.

Both men are charged with one count of money laundering.