Should they be found guilty, each defendant could face up to 20 years in prison for every conspiracy and money laundering charge, along with a potential 20-year sentence for each count of wire fraud.
A newly unsealed superseding indictment reveals that Sidi Diakite, 30; Almamy Diaby, 22; Abdul Aziz Sangare, 26; and Abdoul Aziz Traore, 31, all from Wilmington, along with other accomplices, allegedly ran a financially driven "sextortion" and money laundering enterprise. This group reportedly engaged in cyberstalking, made interstate threats, extorted money, laundered funds, and committed wire fraud. They attempted to extort around $6.9 million from numerous potential victims, successfully obtaining approximately $1.9 million through platforms like CashApp and Apple Pay.
The updated indictment also includes charges against Hadja Kone, 28, from Wilmington, Delaware, who was arrested back in April, and Siaka Ouattara, 22, from Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, who was taken into custody by Ivorian authorities in February on related charges linked to the same scheme.
According to the allegations in the updated indictment, the conspirators masqueraded as young women online, reaching out to thousands of potential victims, primarily young men, including minors from the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. They purportedly offered or provided victims with sexual photographs, video recordings, and “web cam” or “live video chat” sessions, all while misrepresenting themselves as young females. In reality, it was the conspirators who were behind the accounts.
According to the Justice Department's press release, the victims, during these web cam/live video chats, the conspirators secretly recorded the victims as they exposed themselves or engaged in sexual acts. Subsequently, they sent the victims copies of these illicitly obtained sexual images and threatened to share them with the victims’ friends, family, partners, employers, and colleagues, as well as to publish them widely online unless the victims sent money to specified recipients. Ouattara, Kone, Diakite, Diaby, Sangare, Traore, and others also managed the infrastructure necessary to transfer the illegally obtained funds from the victims to conspirators based in Côte d’Ivoire and other locations abroad.
Diakite, Diaby, Sangare, Traore, Kone, and Ouattara have been accused of conspiring to engage in cyberstalking and transmit interstate threats, as well as conspiring to commit money laundering, actual money laundering, and wire fraud. Should they be found guilty, each defendant could face up to 20 years in prison for every conspiracy and money laundering charge, along with a potential 20-year sentence for each count of wire fraud. A federal district court judge will decide the final sentence, taking into account the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and various statutory considerations.
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