The FBI has named Izunna Okonkwo, the celebrated co-founder of Nigerian tech startup Pastel and a 2023 Forbes Africa "30 Under 30" honoree, as a person of interest in a sprawling insider trading and money laundering conspiracy that allegedly generated $41 million in illegal profits. In a major development, U.S. federal investigators have implicated a prominent Nigerian tech entrepreneur in a sophisticated, multi-million dollar financial fraud scheme. Izunna Okonkwo, 30, co-founder of the digital bookkeeping startup Pastel, is accused of being a key beneficiary of confidential information illegally leaked by an investment banker at Citibank. According to a criminal complaint filed by the FBI in the U.S. District Court for New Jersey, the scheme operated for five years. It centered on Gyunho Justin Kim, an investment banker at Citibank in San Francisco, who allegedly shared material, non-public information about upcoming corporate acquisitions with his f...
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