BOSTON – A Watertown man was arrested at this time for allegedly defrauding traders who believed they had been financing profitable short-term sports activities ventures in Africa.

Adrian Kawuba, 33, was charged with one depend of wire fraud. Kawuba will seem in federal court docket in Boston at 2:30 p.m. at this time earlier than United States Magistrate Judge M. Page Kelley.

According to the charging paperwork, Kawuba advised his traders that he would make investments their cash in short-term financing of sports activities ventures in Africa and elsewhere abroad and that he would personally assure their investments. It is alleged nevertheless, that Kawuba didn’t make investments any of the funds he acquired from sufferer traders. Instead, Kawuba allegedly used the cash to pay for luxurious items and to pay purported returns to his traders – in some situations paying again an investor’s earlier funding with cash that traders had simply despatched Kawuba for a brand new funding.

The cost of wire fraud gives a sentence of as much as 20 years in jail, as much as three years of supervised launch, a high quality of $250,000 or twice the financial loss or achieve, whichever is bigger, restitution and forfeiture. Sentences are imposed by a federal district court docket decide based mostly upon the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and statutes which govern the dedication of a sentence in a legal case.

United States Attorney Rachael S. Rollins and Joseph R. Bonavolonta, Special Agent in Charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Boston Division made the announcement at this time. The Watertown Police Department offered helpful help. Assistant U.S. Attorney Kriss Basil of Rollins’ Securities, Financial & Cyber Fraud Unit is prosecuting the case.

The particulars contained within the charging paperwork are allegations. The defendant is presumed harmless until and till confirmed responsible past an inexpensive doubt in a court docket of legislation.