A federal jury convicted an Ashburn woman today on charges of conspiracy, bank fraud, and money laundering.

According to court records and evidence presented at trial, Rose-Marie Nsahlai, 47, and her husband fraudulently obtained two Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans. The PPP was a program instituted by the U.S. Congress to help businesses affected by the coronavirus pandemic continue to pay salaries or wages to their employees. Nsahlai carried out the scheme in connection with two of her husband’s businesses by creating fraudulent payroll documentation for each business, and then submitting that documentation in support of the PPP loan applications. The fraudulent documentation represented that her husband’s businesses had dozens of employees with over $17 million of annual payroll in 2019, when in fact they had few, if any, employees.

In total, Nsahlai and her husband fraudulently obtained approximately $2,501,753 in loan proceeds, and they then spent those funds on items unrelated to any legitimate PPP-related expense. Those items included the down-payment on a 7,000-square-foot home in Leesburg. Nsahlai’s husband pleaded guilty to this scheme in 2021.

Nsahlai faces a maximum penalty of 30 years in prison when sentenced on July 19. Actual sentences for federal crimes are typically less than the maximum penalties. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after taking into account the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.

Jessica D. Aber, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia; Kareem Carter, IRS Criminal Investigation Acting Special Agent in Charge of the Washington D.C. Field Office; Maureen R. Dixon, Special Agent in Charge of the Office of Inspector General for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS); Michael Serra, Acting Special Agent in Charge of the Office of Inspector General for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC); and Amaleka McCall-Brathwaite, Eastern Region Special Agent in Charge for the Small Business Administration, Office of Inspector General (SBA-OIG), made the announcement after U.S. District Judge Rossie D. Alston, Jr. accepted the verdict.

Assistant U.S. Attorneys Jordan M. Harvey and David A. Peters are prosecuting the case.

Source: Justice.gov/USA

Some armed men attacked vehicles on Sunday, March 13, 2023 at 10pm along the Douala-Yaoundé road and eyewitnesses reported that there were some casualties.

According to a Cameroon Concord News source whose car had been riddled with bullets, the armed men were all Francophones and their motive was not necessarily money.

“The armed men are not after money. They just want to sow terror in the country and it is hard to characterize them at this time. However, they are either terrorists or armed robbers, but we will wait for the government to tell us who they are,” the source said.

He added that “going by what they were saying in French, it is obvious that they are sick and tired of the messy political situation in the country. If they really needed money, they would have asked us to hand them our belongings.

“They were shouting in French that the country was messy and that something must be done if Cameroon must be saved,” he said.

Our people are suffering and the government is not taking appropriate decisions. We are living in darkness as if we are in the dark ages. Where in the world would you find neighborhoods in a nation’s capital without water and lights for years?” the attackers said.

The attack, which occurred at 10 pm, sowed panic and chaos on the Yaoundé-Douala highway and many people traveling at that time had to make a U-Turn to avoid the attackers, who were visibly angry, the source said.

Meanwhile, an Amba fighter who called the Cameroon Concord News stated that if the armed Francophones needed weapons, then they should contact Amba fighters who had a massive warehouse of weapons which could help the “fighters of later days” to achieve their goal – unseating the Biya regime which has brought untold hardship to the people of Cameroon.

“If these attackers are really serious, they will contact us. We have an arsenal of deadly weapons lying idle. We can put that at their disposal for them to achieve their goal,” the Amba fighter said.

“Our weapons are effective and if anybody has doubts, he can check with the Cameroon army. Our bullets have already sent more than 3,000 army soldiers to an early grave and the government now lives in fear,” the angry Amba fighter pointed out.

“We are in the business of sending soldiers home in body bags and many Cameroonian soldiers do not want to come to the two English-speaking regions because they know what awaits them. We can help our Francophone brothers with our weapons. What are brothers for?” the Amba fighter said.

“We cannot fight in French Cameroon but if the armed Francophone fighters need any training, they can come to us for capacity building sessions,” he said.

“We will train them. The first session will transform them into butchers. I was trained to severe the heads of soldiers in a neat way and we did a good job in our first days to chop off heads and penises,” the Amba soldier who refused to give his name said over the phone.

Meanwhile, Cameroon Concord News has dispatched its correspondents to the venue of the mayhem and initial reports say government security forces are on the ground to reassure the population.

For now, those using the Yaoundé-Douala highway are in fear and they know they are strictly on their own as the Yaoundé government is still trying to figure out if it is a problem of banditry or terrorism.

However, something is happening in French Cameroon and this might be the beginning of a more complex and complicated situation.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai