The Justice Department put the damage in a single sentence: “Many victims drained their retirement accounts, sold their homes and vehicles, returned to work after retirement, and borrowed substantial sums from friends and family.” That is a description of households, not of a defendant, and it is the part of this case worth reading twice. The prison term handed down in Des Moines was 70 months. The money that left those households came to more than $1.6 million.
Han-Dak LLC existed so the money would look like a garment business
Nana Takyiwa Adonu, 43, of Odenton, Maryland, did not run the dating profiles. She ran the place the money landed. Prosecutors describe her role in an extensive romance scam conspiracy as integral, and the instrument was a company called Han-Dak LLC, which she used to receive funds from victims across the country.
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Iowa, Adonu took in over $1.6 million from victims, including more than $55,000 from one person living in that district. The victims sent the money at the request of their supposed romantic partners, believing it would help bring the two of them together. When the FBI came asking, Adonu said Han-Dak LLC was a legitimate garment production company making clothing in China, and later answered a federal grand jury subpoena with false invoices and fabricated “customer” and “vendor” lists. That is the whole function of a front company. A wire to a stranger looks like a wire to a stranger. A wire to a registered LLC with a business account, an invoice trail and a plausible industry looks like commerce, to the bank and to the person sending it.
Free retirement updates: Social Security and Medicare change every year, and nobody sends you a memo. Our free Retirement Shield newsletter breaks down what changed and what to do. Get it free in your inbox.
The 70 months are a money-laundering sentence, and that distinction matters
Adonu was sentenced on July 22, 2026, to 70 months in federal prison for money laundering, stemming from her participation in the nationwide romance scam. On top of the prison term she was ordered to pay $1,655,640.76 in restitution, and she will serve a three-year term of supervised release once she is out.
The charge is worth understanding because it is where these cases usually end up. Someone has to move stolen money into the banking system and make it look ordinary, and that person is often not the one typing the messages. Prosecutors did not have to prove Adonu wrote a word of romance to any victim; they had to prove the money was criminal proceeds and that she handled it as if it were not, which the false invoices and the garment-company story made considerably easier to show. United States Attorney David C. Waterman announced the sentence. The FBI’s Omaha Cyber Task Force and the Polk County Sheriff’s Office investigated, and Assistant United States Attorney Joseph Lubben prosecuted the case.
Naabanyin Aniagyei-Cobbold got 108 months, and the same sentence describes his victims
Adonu had a co-defendant, and his file reads like a template for hers. Naabanyin Aniagyei-Cobbold, 30, was sentenced on March 5, 2026, to nine years, or 108 months, for wire fraud and money laundering, plus three years of supervised release and $1,554,442.46 in restitution. His front company was Alpha Distributions LLC, and when the FBI confronted him he called it a legitimate operation sourcing electronics for people in Africa, then produced false invoices and receipts for the grand jury. He collected over $1.5 million from victims, including more than $400,000 from a single person in central Iowa.
The detail that shows this is a business rather than an impulse: prosecutors say Aniagyei-Cobbold recruited and coached at least one other individual through setting up a sham entity, building it a website, and opening the bank accounts, all of it for the purpose of receiving romance scam money. During the conspiracy he also created and starred in a music video titled “S.C.A.M.” with lyrics about “scam money” and “laundering it up,” posing beside a car with the word spelled out on the hood in hundred-dollar bills. The two press releases carry the identical sentence about victims draining retirement accounts, selling homes and vehicles, and going back to work after retiring, because it is the same conspiracy and the same households. The two restitution orders total $3,210,083.22 on paper, though the releases do not say whether any portion of that is owed jointly.
What the FBI tells someone who has already wired the money
The FBI’s guidance on romance scams is short and it is aimed at the exact pattern in this case. Scammers move fast to establish a relationship, may propose marriage and make plans to meet in person that never happen, and often claim to work in construction on a project outside the country, which conveniently explains both the distance and the sudden medical or legal expense. The bureau’s flat rule is to never send money to anyone you have only communicated with online or by phone. It adds a warning that applies directly to the Han-Dak arrangement: if someone you met online wants your bank account information in order to deposit money, they are most likely using your account to run other theft and fraud, which can turn a victim into a defendant.
The Justice Department’s release closes with the practical steps. Stop all contact. Report any transfer of funds to your own financial institution, which is the only party with a realistic shot at recalling a recent wire. Report the fraud to the FBI, either at ic3.gov or through a local field office at 1-800-CALL-FBI. DOJ also cites the bureau’s national figures: in 2024, approximately 59,000 people fell victim to romance-related scams and lost over $672 million, and the FBI notes that shame keeps a great many more from ever filing at all.
$1,655,640.76 is the order; collection is a separate 20-year problem
A restitution number in a press release is not a check in the mail, and the Justice Department is unusually blunt about this. Its guidance on the restitution process explains that payments are collected and then disbursed by the Clerk of the federal district court, and that unless the court orders otherwise they go out pro rata, meaning each payment is split among victims in proportion to their losses. While a defendant is still incarcerated, a percentage of prison wages can be applied through the Inmate Financial Responsibility Program. The order also acts as a lien against the defendant’s property, and victims may request an Abstract of Judgment from the clerk to record a lien in their own name.
What that produces in practice is set out in the department’s own words. A restitution order is enforceable for twenty years from the filing of the judgment, plus the time actually served, and the Financial Litigation Unit pursues it for that whole span. “Realistically, however, the chance of full recovery is very low,” the guidance says, because most defendants do not have the assets and most orders are large. “If and when the defendant pays, you most likely will receive a number of small payments over a long period of time.” Victims are told to keep their address current with the clerk’s office and in the Victim Notification System, or their share can end up disbursed to someone else. Against $1,655,640.76 ordered and $1,554,442.46 before it, that is the arithmetic the households in this case are left holding.
This article was produced with AI assistance and reviewed by a human editor. Figures are linked to their primary sources; where a claim could not be verified from the public record, we say so.
More Financial Reading
