Feds deny relative of Idi Amin ability to travel, cite flight risk
Gustafson ran international counterfeiting ring that unraveled here
Ryan Gustafson, a relative of the late Ugandan dictator Idi Amin and whose international counterfeiting operation was uncovered in Pittsburgh, wants court permission to travel from his home in Texas to see his family. But federal prosecutors are worried he won’t come back and then duck out on the $230,000 in restitution he owes to his victims.
Gustafson, 34, was sentenced to six years in federal prison in 2019 for manufacturing bogus money in Africa and shipping the bills to the U.S.
His scheme was undone by the passing of a fake bill at a Pittsburgh coffee shop.
Gustafson was freed from prison a year ago on compassionate release grounds and lives in Texas on house arrest. But now he wants approval to travel internationally to see his wife, Gabriela, the granddaughter of Amin, and their daughter Sarah, who live in Africa.
The U.S. attorney’s office on Wednesday opposed the motion, asking U.S. District Judge Mark Hornak to reject the request because of fears that Gustafson will disappear.
“Mr. Gustafson’s motion presents a difficult situation,” said Assistant U. S. Attorney Charles Eberle in court papers. “While certainly sympathetic to Mr. Gustafson’s strong desire to be reunited with his wife and child, the government is nevertheless duty-bound to first and foremost protect the interests of the many victims of Mr. Gustafson’s crimes to whom he still owes more than $230,000 in restitution. The government’s concern is that there are no conceivable safeguards that can guarantee his voluntary return to the United States if his motion to travel is granted.”
Mr. Eberle said probation officers recently found out that Gustafson tried to obtain a U.S. passport. He was denied, but Mr. Eberle asked Judge Hornak to prohibit him from getting one in the future.
Gustafson, a former Christian missionary in Africa, was indicted twice in Pittsburgh, once with running a counterfeit ring from Uganda and a second time with shipping fake bills into the United States. He was initially arrested in Uganda in 2014 and extradited to Pittsburgh in December 2015.
Mr. Eberle said Gustafson fought extradition and has lived a “transient life” as the son of missionary parents originally from Montana who spend most of their time in Africa or traveling around the U.S. in an RV while raising money for mission trips. Gustafson has lived or spent large amounts of time in Montana, Colorado, Oregon, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda and South Africa.
“His wife and child currently reside in Africa, and his parents regularly travel to Africa on mission trips,” Mr. Eberle said. “His long history of residing in Africa, his vigorous opposition to
removal from Uganda to the United States in 2015, his court-ordered obligation to pay $230,000 in restitution, and his desire to be permanently reunited with his wife and child, all combine to create a very real risk that Mr. Gustafson would not voluntarily return to the United States if permitted to travel to a foreign country.”
Gustafson said he hasn’t seen his wife and daughter for five years and had been trying to bring them to the U.S., but COVID-19 restrictions stymied those efforts.
“The toll that separation has had on Gustafson and family is significant,” he wrote last month in a selffiled motion from Galveston, Texas. “The effects of separation has caused physical symptoms to manifest such as anxiety, depression, weight loss and insomnia.”
He asked that he be allowed to join his wife and daughter in a country approved by probation officers that accept Congolese nationals on tourist visas. If that isn’t possible, he suggested they meet in Cameroon, where Gabriela’s visa interview would take place, or in Mexico.
The Gustafson prosecution began in 2014 when Ugandan police raided his house and found fake bills, computers, printers and rubber “Anon Hands” gloves designed to conceal fingerprints.
Using the online name “Willy Clock,” he established a dark website in 2013 to teach people how to make phony bills and avoid getting caught. He later sold and shipped fake bills to American customers who paid him in real money.
The scheme unraveled in Pittsburgh when one of those customers, Joe Graziano, bought a latte at an Oakland coffee shop using a fake $100 bill.
That transaction launched a Secret Service investigation that eventually zeroed in on Gustafson in Africa.
At his sentencing in 2019, Judge Hornak said Gustafson is smart. But he warned him against thinking he’s too smart to get caught again someday if he pulls another scheme.