Classic Baggie: Part 2 - How to run a Money Laundering Operation
CyberCrime & Doing Time 2024-01-14
In Part 1 of this story Classic Baggie: A Delaware BEC Case calls him the leader of an International Criminal Organization the prosecutor in the case of Olugbenga Lawal has given his opening arguments, where he calls Classic Baggie the leader of an international criminal enterprise.
On the first day of the trial, before selecting the jury, an FBI Agent specializing in Transnational Organized Crime is brought in before the judge. This agent was supposed to testify about how West African Organized Crime works. The prosecutor and the judge discussed it before the Agent was summoned, and the judge said she would not allow the Agent to refer to it as "West African Organized Crime" in his testimony, even though the prosecutor assured her that there were unique things about how West African Organized Crime functions, because the judge believed it would tend to create a prejudice against the defendant in the minds of the jury, since the defendant is West African himself. After the jury was brought in and selected and the case began, a different FBI Special Agent, who works on a White Collar Crime Squad is brought in to testify. Here's a small portion of that testimony, which takes the nature of a Question and Answer session, with the questions being asked by the prosecutor, Mr. Wenger:
BY MR. WENGER: Q. Did the FBI's investigation determine whether that south Florida based group was operating independently or at someone else's direction? A. Yes, we did.
Q. What did the investigation uncover? A. We learned that the group was operating at the direction of an individual in Nigeria.
Q. And are you aware of who that individual in Nigeria is? A. Yes. His name is Ehonre Oluwaseun, which I can spell if you need but he's better known publicly and to law enforcement as Classic Baggie.
Q. Can you briefly describe how the investigation uncovered this group who was operating at the direction of who I am go to refer to as Classic Baggie? A. During our investigation we seized a number of cell phones from Michael Hermann and executed a warrant from the cell phones and we were able to review text messages between Michael Hermann and Classic Baggie.
Q. Over the course of executing that warrant, did that also further the investigation? A. Yes, it did.
Q. How did that further the investigation in terms of identifying who this group was operating at the direction of? A. We -- I identified other members of the network who were also working for Classic Baggie.
Q. Now, over the course of the investigation, did the FBI identified bank accounts controlled by Michael Hermann, Rita Assane and Dwight Baines? A. Yes.
Now its time to hear from the Government's witness, Michael Hermann, who is also charged in this case. His testimony was on Day Two of the trial and I've cut some portions of it. We'll start with some of his personal background and who the key players in the case are, all from the courtroom transcript of Day Two. I'm including all this extra detail especially for the benefit of my overseas readers, who may be less familiar with how U.S. court process works, I know it is long, but I think you'll be glad to have read the details!
DAY TWO - Direct Examination by Mr. Wenger
MICHAEL HERMANN, having been duly sworn, was examined and testified as follows: DIRECT EXAMINATION BY MR. WENGER:
Q. Good morning, Mr. Hermann. A. Good morning.
Q. How old are you? A. I am thirty-five.
Q. Where did you grow up? A. I grow up in the Ivory Coast, West Africa.
Q. When did you move to the United States? A. In 2005.
Q. How old were you then? A. I was eighteen.
Q. When you first moved to the United States, where did you live? A. I lived in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
Q. How long did you live in Oklahoma? A. About ten years.
Q. Did you go to college? A. Yes.
Q. Did you graduate from college? A. Yes.
Q. Where did you go to college? A. At the University of Central Illinois.
Q. What did you study? A. Finance.
Q. Are you married? A. Yes.
Q. How long have you been married? A. About twelve years.
Q. Where were you living in the 2019, and 2020 time frame? A. I was living in Miami.
Q. And how long had you been living in Miami at that point? A. Probably about like two years, year-and-a-half, two years.
Q. Were you living with your wife at that time? A. No.
Q. Where was your wife living? A. She was in Texas.
Q. Were you separated from your wife at that time? A. Yes.
Q. Turning your attention to 2019, what were you doing for a living at that time? A. In 2019, I was throughout the part of the year, I was doing different things, I was in marketing, I had amarketing company and I was also an apprentice for a watch business.
Q. What was the name of your marketing company? A. Top Slope Ventures LLC.
Q. Where you making a lot of money doing those things in the first part of 2019? A. Not really.
Q. At some point in 2019, did you get involved in the money laundering conspiracy? A. Yes.
Q. Are you here to testify about your involvement in that money laundering conspiracy? A. Yes.
Q. Were you a member of that conspiracy? A. Yes.
Q. Who got you involved in that money laundering conspiracy? A. Classic Baggie.
Q. Is that a nickname? A. Yes, it's a nickname.
Q. Do you know Classic Baggie's real name? A. Ehonre Oluwaseun.
Q. Approximately when did you work -- I'm going to refer to that individual as Classic Baggie, that's how you knew him best? A. Yes.
Q. Approximately when did you begin working with Classic Baggie to launder money? A. Around November of 2019.
Q. And where were you living in November of 2019? A. Miami, Florida.
Q. How long were you actively involved in this money laundering conspiracy? A. About a year.
Q. Did you work with anybody else in the Miami area as part of this money laundering conspiracy? A. Yes.
Q. Who did you primarily work with? A. I worked with Rita Assane, and Dwight Baines.
Q. How did they get involved in this money laundering conspiracy? A. They were around the vicinity, so I got involved.
Q.Before you got involved with Classic Baggie, had you ever been involved in money laundering before? A. No.
Q. How did you know what to do? A. Classic Baggie taught me everything I needed to know.
Q. Mr. Hermann, when you talk about he taught you everything you needed to know, who were you referring to as he? A. Classic Baggie.
Q. How did you communicate with Classic Baggie? A. Primarily WhatsApp messages, phone call and video calls.
Q. And as you really got started with the money laundering, how frequently were you communicating withClassic Baggie? A. Every day, every other day.
Q. Can you please turn to what is the smaller binder in front of you with your name on the front. And flip to the document marked Government Exhibit 132(c). What is that document? A. This is a picture of Classic Baggie.
Q. Do you recognize that individual as Classic Baggie? A. Yes. MR. WENGER: The government moves to admit and briefly publish Government Exhibit 132(c). MR. SPARACO: No objection. THE COURT: Thank you. Its admitted.
Q. That individual up there on the screen is who you would have video calls with? A. Yes.
Q. And who you would be in communication with? A. Yes.
Q. And who taught you how to do money laundering? A. Yes.
Q.Where did you understand Classic Baggie to live? A. Nigeria.
Q. Is that based on your conversation with him? A. Yes.
Q. And your video calls with him? A. Yes.
Q. What did you understand Classic Baggie to do in Nigeria? A. He told me that he had a few businesses, including the construction company. And a money business where heexchanged money from across the countries and stuff, also in the car import and export car business.
Q. Through the course of your communications with Classic Baggie, does the name Olugbenga Lawal come up? A. Yes.
Q. How did that first come up? A. It came up when he first asked me to do small favors to him at the beginning, he had me send money to Olugbenga.
Q. And did that name Olugbenga Lawal repeatedly come up over the course of your money laundering relationship with Classic Baggie? A. Yes, a lot.
Q. When that name would have come up, how would it come up? A. It would come up, he would tell me to send $50,000 to Lawal with an address or something like that, send CashAppto Lawal and send me the details and things like that, yeah.
Q. Have you ever met Olugbenga Lawal? A. No.
Q. Have you ever spoken to him? A. No.
Q. Would you know what Olugbenga Lawal looks like? A. No.
Q. Did you also communicate with Rita Assane and Dwight Baines about your money laundering activities? A. Yes.
Q. And how would you communicate with them about the money laundering activities you were doing together? A. Via text message and phone calls.
Q. Would you use any apps? A. WhatsApp messages, yes.
Q. Is that also how you were communicating with Classic Baggie? A. Yes.
Q. Ms. Busch, can we pull up what's been previously admitted as Government Exhibit 205? Zoom in on that chart.Mr. Hermann, is that a chart that we've gone over before? A. Yes.
Q. And you've looked at all those government exhibits that are referenced in the right-hand column? A. Yes.
Q. And do you understand that these are all messages that on-these exhibits were all messages obtained fromphones of yours? A. Yes.
Q. And are those names in the left-hand column contacts that were saved in either your phone or your WhatsApp app? A. Yes.
Q. I want to first start with the top line of these rows. Who is Mike RM Plug? A. That's me.
Q. Is that a user name, or a name you had used on your phone or your WhatsApp? A. Yeah.
Q. How about Mike Miami? A. That's me, also.
Q. And Michael Hermann? A. That's me.
Q. Now I want to look at the bottom names on each of those rows. Who do you have saved in your phone as Manu New S? A. Rita Assane.
Q. Who do you have save in your phone as Manu Newcell? A. Also Rita Assane.
Q. Who do you have saved in your phone as Baggie? A. Classic Baggie.
Q. Who do you have saved in your phone as D Heavy? A. Dwight Baines.
Q. Who do you have saved in your phone as Heavy 2x? A. Dwight Baines, also.
Q. And all those messages referenced in those government exhibits we have gone over before, were all thoseconversations centered on your money laundering activities with those various individuals? A. Yes.
Q. We're going to get into more details about your involvement in money laundering in a moment. First, I wantto skip ahead to the winter and spring of 2022. Were you charged in Federal Court for your involvement in this moneylaundering conspiracy? A. Yes.
Q. Were you arrested on those charges? A. Yes.
Q. About when were you arrested? A. About March of 2022.
Q. And do you remember where you were arrested? A. I turned myself in here.
Q. Here in this court house? A. Well, in Delaware, but I think it was in a different court house, if it was here, I don't remember.
Q. You remember turning yourself in to a Federal Court house somewhere in Delaware? A. Right. Yes.
Q. Did you get to go home after you turned yourself in? A. No, bail was set, and I was put on house arrest.
Q. When you said you were not able to go home, does that mean you were not able to go home to Miami? A. That's correct, yes.
Q. Were you kept in custody or any significant amount of time after you turned our yourself in? A. Yeah, one day and then I was sent to Texas.
Q. Who was living in Texas? A. My wife and my kids.
Q. Did you have any restrictions placed on you at that time? A. Yes, I was on house arrest.
Q. Have you been living in Texas under similar restrictions ever since that time? A. Yes.
Q. Did you ultimately decide to cooperate with the government's investigation in this case? A. Yes.
Q. Did you later agree to plead guilty to your federal charge? A. Yes.
Q. Can you turn to paragraph 15 of this agreement. Just briefly read it and look up when you've read that paragraph. A. (Witness reviewing document. ) Yes.
Q. What do you understand that paragraph to mean? A. It means that I would be responsible along with the co-conspirators to repay restitution for the sum of3,761,066 back to the victims.
Q. So restitution was $3,761,066? A. Yes.
Q. What's your understanding of what restitution is? A. It is paying it back.
Q. Paying it back to who? A. To the victims.
Q. That's the amount you've agreed to work to pay back? A. Right.
Mr. Hermann starts recruiting more money launderers for Classic Baggie
Q. I want to turn back to the money laundering operation, and I want to begin by asking you about yourrelationship to some of the individuals that we already talked about. How long have you known Rita Asane? A. Over a decade.
Q. How did you meet her? A. I met her through a friend of her sister at the time.
Q. And what was the nature of your relationship with Ms. Asane in 2019? A. We were romantically involved at that time.
Q. How long have you been romantically involved? A. Probably about a year-and-a-half at that point.
Q. Why did you turn to Ms. Asane to join the money laundering operation? A. She was close, and pretty much saw everything, justbeing that close, when I was talking to Classic Baggie and every time like that, so she wanted to join, she saw theopportunity also and I was like yeah, it works out, like I talked to him, he was okay with it, and she joined.
Q. Did she hesitate at all? A. No, she was excited.
Q. Was she financially struggling at the time? A. Yeah, we all were.
Q. Did you say you were all financially struggling at the time? A. Yes.
Q. Turning to Dwight Baines, how did you meet Dwight Baines? A. I met him at the beginning of 2019.
Q. How did you meet Dwight Baines? A. I was selling some clothing online, on an app called Offer Up, and he contacted me through Offer Up and westarted talking, I told him about the jeans, clothing, we started being friends and we were cool from there.
Q. Why did you turn to Mr. Baines to join the money laundering conspiracy? A. He was already in that world, you know, so it was easy for me to have a conversation with him as well.
Q. When you say he was already in that world, can you briefly explain what you mean by that world? A. He was already doing like small scams, like getting apartments and small things like that.
Q. Do you know if Mr. Baines had any association with the name Kyle Miller? A. Yeah, that was his alias.
A Strange Way to Buy A Watch: How Mr. Hermann met Classic Baggie
Q. I want to focus on your relationship with Classic Baggie. About when did you first have contact with ClassicBaggie? A. I first had contact with him when I sold a watch to one of the biggest artist in Nigeria, his name is Davido, so when I sold him the watch, he got it and had a concert in Dubai, he was so excited about it, he posted on his story, I think at the time he had 20 million followers, and when he posted it, he posted I was one of the best watch dealers, and on his story he tied me in there and blew up my Instagram page, he has a big Nigerian following, and a bunch of those people followed me and out of those when Classic Baggie started following me.
Q. Was this had in the summer of 2019? A. That happened around August of 2019.
Q. So around August of 2019, that summer, to early fall,did you continue to talk to Classic Baggie? A. Yes.
Q. And at that time, what was the focus of therelationship between you and Classic Baggie? A. At that time it was me being apprentice watch dealertalking to a client, he wanted to buy a watch, so we wasbasically talking about the whole watch thing, just send mea picture of this watch, how much is this, responding back,things like that, so it was just business.
Q. Are we talking about $10 watches, $10,000 watches,$100,000 watches? A. No, we talking about $275,000 watches, 300,000, typeof watches.
Q. You said you were working as an apprentice at thattime. Can you just briefly describe the businessrelationship with the people that you were apprenticing for? A. Sure. So I have been working under them for --they're watch dealers, right, so I wanted to learn thebusiness, so I was working with them going to the store andthings like that, like learning the business for over a yearjust working for free and just trying to learn, going towatch events, conferences to get familiar with the businessand try to get sales. So my job was to take pictures ofwatches, post them on social media, promote it, go out andtry to network and try to get clients for them so I couldmake a sale and make a commission from the sale.
Q. Did you wind up selling any watches to ClassicBaggie? A. Yes.
Q. What watch did you sell? A. I sold him a Richard Mille RN11-03 McLaren.
Q. How much money did you sell him that watch for? A. $275,000.
Q. When did that happen? A. That happened in November 2019.
Q. So when you were apprenticing, how much money did youmake when you sold a $275,000 watch? A. I didn't make that much on this watch in particular.They just give me like $2,000.
Q. And when you were talking to Classic Baggie aboutthis watch purchase, how were you communicating with him? A. At first he contacted me through Instagram, and thenwe moved to WhatsApp, send me his number through WhatsApp,it was easier to communicate.
Q. Did Classic Baggie write you a personal check for$275,000 to buy that watch? A. No.
Q. Did he wire you $275,000 from a personal Nigerianbank account to buy that watch? A. No.
Q. How did Classic Baggie pay for that $275,000 watch? A. He had someone make cashier checks in smallincrements to pay for the watch.
Q. And where was that person located? A. In Georgia.
Q. In the United States? A. Yes.
Q. So Classic Baggie wasn't depositing those cashier'schecks? A. No.
Q. Where were those cashiers's check getting deposited? A. To the business bank account of my boss, my partnersfor the watch business.
Q. Is that how you were expecting to get paid? A. No.
Q. Is that an unusual way to get paid for luxurywatches? A. Yes, there is usually require a wire, direct wire sowe can make sure we track and know everything, but he paidthrough cashier checks, different cashier checks fordifferent companies.
Q. Did that raise any red flags for you or the peopleyou were working for? A. Yes, at the time, yes.
Q. Can you describe why that raised red flags for youand the people you were working for? A. It was, as I said, unusual and we sent them the wireinformation and he replied with a receipt of a payment, butit looks like it was a deposit. So it was weird, and theyhad to look into it more, just get more information aboutthis guy, the way he was paying.
Q. Can you turn to that slightly larger binder that's infront of you that has Government Exhibits 300 to 405. Canyou take a moment to look at what's marked as GovernmentExhibits 402(a) through 402(d-1). A. Yes.
Q. Do you recognize those documents? A. Yes.
Q. Are these some of those phone messages we weretalking about earlier? A. Yes.
Q. Who are these phone messages between? A. Those are messages between Classic Baggie and I.
Q. And over these couple of exhibits, what are youtalking about with Classic Baggie? A. In this I am discussing with Classic Baggie, in herehe asked me, he wanted to buy three watches, I confirmed howmany watches. And we basically exchanging what he's askingme to send my information to receive the payments for thesewatches. So I sent him the wire information for the watchbusiness.
Q. I want to talk to you about a few of those governmentexhibits. If you could focus your attention first just on402(a) and 402(b). Ms. Busch, can you please pull upGovernment Exhibit 402(a). And zoom in on that middlemessage on page 4 of this exhibit. And just the first timewe're looking at one of these up close, I want to talk abouta few different parts of this message. Mr. Hermann, up onthe top left-hand corner where it says from, what name doesit say? A. Baggy.
Q. Who is baggy to you? A. That is Classic Baggie.
Q. What's the date of this message on the bottomright-hand corner? A. November 20th of 2019.
Q. And what is Classic Baggie sending you in thismessage? A. He's sending me a picture of a receipt from a depositfrom -- to pay for the watch that he purchased.
Q. Ms. Busch, can we please pull up Government Exhibit402(b), which is a larger version of that attachment.Mr. Hermann, can you explain again what thisreceipt meant to you? A. This receipt was deposited, that would go towards thepurchase of the $275,000 watch that he sent, that was hisconfirmation that he sent a deposit towards that watch so hesent it to me.
Q. Again when you say he sent the deposit, did he makethis deposit? A. No, he had somebody else make a deposit.
Q. This message was dated November 20th, what's the dateof that receipt? A. November 20th.
Q. Thank you, Ms. Busch.Ms. Busch, if you could please pull upGovernment Exhibit 402(c) to focus on that top message. Whois this message from, Mr. Hermann? A. Baggie.
Q. What's the date of this message? A. November 21, 2019.
Q. And what is Baggie sending you in this message? A. He's sending me another payment that will go towardsthe purchase of the $275,000 watch.
Q. Ms. Busch, could we pull up 402(c-1), which again isa larger version of that image.How much was this deposit for? A. $82,700.
Q. Again, what accounts are these deposits being madeinto? A. They are depositing the money into the Chase accountfor my business partners in the watch business.
Q. What's the date of this receipt? A. November 21st, 2019.
Q. Did you have a conversation with Classic Baggie aboutwho was depositing these checks? A. Yes.
Q. If you could turn your attention to GovernmentExhibit 402(d). Just briefly read through the messagescontained in 402(d).What are you talking about with Classic Baggiein those messages? A. In these messages, I asked him the send me moreinformation about whoever is sending the money, becausewe're concerned about the way that the money was beingdeposited into the account, and I urged him to send moredetail about the person sending the money or the company,and just send more information, ID and things like that,just to verify.
Q. Ms. Busch, can you please pull up Government Exhibit402(d), and focus on the last message of page 2.Can you explain what's going on in this message,Mr. Hermann? A. This is a forwarded message that Classic Baggie sentme, and this is the information of the person that sent thepayments to the business account for the watch.
Q. You say send the payments, do you mean the personthat was depositing those cashier checks? A. Right.
Q. And sending those receipts? A. Correct.
Q. We're going to see this word forwarded, in the topleft-hand corner on quite a few messages. Can you explainbased on your use of WhatsApp what that means? A. It means a message that has been forwarded fromanother person that was sent to me.
Q. Based on your understanding, would Classic Baggiehave typed out the information on that message or would youhave forwarded that information from somebody else? A. Right, he had forwarded that information fromsomebody else.
Q. Can you just read the business name and individualname that appears on this message? A. Sure. It is the Mullings Group LLC, and MalachiMullings.
Q. Thank you, Ms. Busch. If we could leave outGovernment Exhibit 402(d), and turn to the top of page 3.Can you zoom in on that top message. What does that messagemean to you, Mr. Hermann? A. This message is a forwarded message from ClassicBaggie with the ID of the individual that sent the payments,the deposit to this account.
Q. Why were you getting this ID? A. I was getting it to verify the information that Ipreviously was asking for to make sure that whoever issending the money you know, is actually the person.
Q. Can we please pull up Government Exhibit 402(d-1)which again is a larger version of that attachment. What'sthe name on that driver's license? A. Malachi Anthony Mullings.
Q. Is that an individual that you ever met in person? A. Yes.
Q. And what resulted in you meeting Malachi Mullings inperson? A. I had to meet him because Classic Baggie arranged ameeting between us for him to drop me off some money.
Q. And over the course of your relationship with ClassicBaggie, did you develop an understanding of what ClassicBaggie's relationship was to this Malachi Mullings person? A. Yeah, they were working together.
Q. Thank you, Ms. Busch.Now, at some point did Classic Baggie start toask you for favors that had nothing to do with $275,000watches? A. Yes.
Q. Can you tell me how that started to happen? A. That started in -- at the end of -- towards the endof 20 -- November of 2019. He asked me to pick up $25,000from someone in Fort Lauderdale in Florida, and it wassupposed to go towards the purchase of the watch, because hewas making payments, and I told him that we couldn't takecash because of the way my partners accept money, it has tobe straight wired, the way you have been paying is alreadycomplicated, so I can't add cash to it, it's going to be toomuch, he did insist that I go pick up the money, because hesaid it would be safe with me, than the person he had themoney with, so I went and picked up $25,000.
Q. Is that a normal thing you do with people, go andpick up tens of thousands of dollars in cash and hold on toit for them? A. No.
Q. Why were you doing this for Classic Baggie at thattime? A. At that time, I just wanted to be on his good side,have some small favors, hopefully because he looked like hehad a lot of money, I just wanted to be cool with him and beon his good side, just do favors, help him out, it didn'tseem like anything crazy, hold on to the money, I'll tellyou what to do, I was like okay, cool.
Q. What did he wind up asking you to do with that$25,000 or so in cash? A. He started asking me to send cashier -- deposit moneyorders, make money orders with it, like he told me to go tolike Publix, for example, just go do money orders, $5,000and send it to this person, do another 5,000, 2,000, send itto this person, things like that.
Q. What is Publix? A. Sorry, it's a store, it's like a Wal-Mart orsomething like that in Florida, very popular.
Q. I just want to break this down a little bit. Hewould ask you to go to Publix, and how would you get a moneyorder? A. You go to the cashiers, customer service people andyou just ask them, you want money orders and you give themcash and they give you money orders and then you have it,and you can send it to whoever.
Q. And Classic Baggie gave you names of people to sendthose money orders to? A. Yes.
Q. And would you mail them at times? A. Yes.
Q. Did he also ask you to send any mobile payments fromthat $25,000? A. Yes.
Q. Can you turn to what is marked as GovernmentExhibit 402(g), 402(g-1) and 402(g-2). Mr. Hermann, if youcould turn in your binder and take a look at what's markedas Government Exhibit 402(g), 402(g-1)and 402(g-2). A. Yes.
Q. Do you recognize those documents? A. Yes.
Q. And at a high level, what are you talking about withClassic Baggie in these documents? A. In these documents, Classic Baggie sent meinstructions to send payments to Lawal R.
Q. Ms. Busch, could you see what it looks like if wepull up 402(g), just the last two messages on that page.Is that the instruction that Classic Baggie issending to you? A. Yes. He sent me a screen shot of this and with aname of like a CashApp tag, I had to send money to.
Q. Could you scroll down to that next message Ms. Busch,what does that say Mr. Hermann? A. He say kindly pay my balance in here.
Q. What balance is Classic Baggie referring to? A. He's referring to the money that he has with me.
Q. Ms. Busch, could we pull up Government Exhibit402(g-1), which is a larger version of that attachment thatClassic Baggie was sent to Michael Hermann.What's the name on that CashApp account? A. Lawal R.
Q. At that time, did you have any idea who or what LawalR was? A. No.
Q. And can you please turn to the next -- GovernmentExhibit 402(G-2), Ms. Busch. Mr. Hermann, what is thismessage, what is this image? A. This is a screen shot that I sent back to ClassicBaggie to let him know that I in fact went ahead and madethe payments that he asked me to make for the sum of $3,500.
Mr. Hermann starts laundering money for Classic Baggie
Q. Thank you, Ms. Busch.Now, at this time, do you fully appreciate thatyou are working with someone to launder money? A. At this time I am --
Q. At the end of November, very early December? A. At that time, I am not in the mind frame that I'mactually laundering money at that time.
Q. Did you think something weird was going on with allthese favors that Classic Baggie was asking you to do? A. Yes, yes, for sure.
Q. Did you think maybe there was something a little offabout these favors? A. Yes.
Q. Had you ever been in the business of just sendingmoney to different people at someone's direction before? A. No.
Q. So can you explain how you went from doing thesefavors to knowingly joining a money laundering conspiracy? A. Sure. So while this was going on, you know, afterthis he gave me like a thousand dollars, 1,500, somethinglike that, that I remember, and so after that he basically-- because the first time he -- because he wanted to buythree watches originally, so he bought one from my guys andwhen I told him how much I made on those, it was like$2,000, he's like that is no money, spending $275,000,you're only getting $2,000, you should make more money, doyou have a business account so I could buy through youdirectly, I said I do, but it's not an actual watchbusiness, I have to pay to a watch business, I have amarketing company, he said that's fine, as long as you havea business account, I can pay through you, you don't have toshare your money with these guys, we can figure it outtogether, we can make money, I was like okay, I candefinitely do that, that works, so I sent him my informationand supposedly doing a watch business together.
Q. Can you turn to Government Exhibit 402(h), Ms. Busch,can we pull up Government Exhibit 402(h), and zoom in on thetop message of page 1. Mr. Hermann, what's the date on thismessage? A. This is December 12, 2019.
Q. And looking at this Government Exhibit in itsentirety, not just on that message that -the portion of themessage that we zoomed in on, what are you talking aboutwith Classic Baggie here? A. In this message, Classic Baggie -- well he asked me-- he sent me reference on how I should send my informationto him, like my business information to him because I thinkI sent it before and it was so disorganized, so he was likethis is how you should send it to me.
Q. Is this in reference to the watch purchase you werehoping to make? A. Yes.
Q. Did he explain why you had to send your user name andpassword? A. He indicated he didn't trust -- it's my first timeworking with him, he wanted to make sure I wouldn't playhim, I wouldn't try to do anything funny, so he asked me tosend everything plus my user name and password so he couldverify.
Q. Ms. Busch, could you pull up page 2 of this document,the top message.Is that the message that you sent in response? A. Yes.
Q. And what are you sending him in this message, and himbeing Classic Baggie? A. Yeah. I'm sending Classic Baggie all my marketinginformation, my business information for my marketingcompany, all of the details that he asked me, and how heasked me to send it.
Q. Based on this exchange, did you ultimately receive alarge deposit into one of your bank accounts? A. Yes.
Q. Into this bank account that's referenced in thismessage? A. Yes.
Q. What bank is that? A. Navy Federal Credit Union.
Q. Had you opened an account in the name of Top SlopeVentures LLC? A. Yes.
Q. Do you remember how much money that deposit was for? A. Yes, $261,000.
Q. Did that deposit come straight from Classic Baggie? A. No.
Q. Again, did somebody else wire that money to you? A. Yes.
Q. Did he tell you who that person was? A. Yeah, he sent me the information of that person.
Q. Ms. Busch, can you please pull up Government Exhibit402(i). And zoom in on the top of page 2. What name doesit say there, Mr. Hermann? A. Sally McCune.
Q. From what city and state? A. Sandusky, Ohio.
Q. Why did you understand Classic Baggie to be sendingyou that name and that information? A. He sent it to me in reference to the wire that wassent just to make sure I know where that wire came from, whosent the wire, the name, I guess, of the person.
Q. If you could turn Ms. Busch, and zoom in on the topmessage of page 3.Mr. Hermann, can you explain what's happening inthis message? A. In this message, I sent them a screen shot of themoney appearing in my account, because he had contacted meand asked me to make sure the money was in my account. Andwhen I saw it, I said yes it was, he said send me a screenshot of it to verify, so I sent it, that's the picture Isent him.
Q. Ms. Busch, could you pull up 402(i-1), which is alarger version of that attachment. What's the availablebalance that you're sending to Classic Baggie in thatattachment? A. Yes.
Q. What is the available balance? A. It was $261,209.70.
Q. Can you explain where you took this picture from? A. I took the picture and I sent it to him.
Q. Is that your online log-in for Navy Federal CreditUnion? A. Yes. Yes.
Q. If you could briefly take out that other small binderin front of you Mr. Hermann, and take a look at what's beenmarked as Government Exhibit 100. A. Yes.
Q. Do you recognize that document? A. Yes.
Q. What is it? A. This is a bank statement from Navy Federal Bankaccount.
Q. And what is the name on that bank account? A. Top Slope Ventures, LLC.
Q. Is that your bank account? A. Yes.
Q. The bank account you opened? A. Right.MR. WENGER: The government moves to admit andpublish Government Exhibit 100.MR. SPARACO: No objection.THE COURT: Thank you. It's admitted.(Government Exhibit no. 100 was admitted intoevidence.BY MR. WENGER:
Q. Ms. Busch, if you could zoom in on the top of page 1.What's the statement period for this document, Mr. Hermann? A. December 1st, 2019, to December 31, 2019.
Q. Ms. Busch, if we could turn to page 2. Strike that.Page 3. And zoom in on the first December 13th entry. Whathappened to your bank account on December 13th, Mr. Hermann? A. On December 13th, I received a wire for $261,000.
Q. And what was the balance in your account before youreceived that wire? A. $262.14.
Q. Did Classic Baggie buy a watch with that $261,000? A. No.
Q. What did he have you do with all that money? A. He had me send to car business to make payment forcar and various things.
Q. I want to turn your attention back to thisDecember 13th, mid December time frame. Before that moneyhit your account, what did you think it was going to be for? A. For a watch.
Q. How quickly did you learn that it was not actuallyfor a watch? A. The next day.
Q. At that point, did you start to have anymore redflags raised in your mind? A. Yeah, for sure.
Q. Was that the first time you had received a very, verylarge amount of money directed to you from Classic Baggie? A. Yes.
Q. Did you think this was all above board at that point? A. Did I think it was what?
Q. Above board, legit? A. No, I definitely felt weird about it, but I was alsoexcited because I never seen that much money before, it wasnerve racking, but also excited at the same time.
Q. Turning back to what he actually had you do with thatmoney, you said he had you write a cashiers check to a carcompany? A. Yeah.
Q. Do you remember how much that cashiers check was for? A. $122,000.
Q. Could we please pull up what's marked as GovernmentExhibit 402(k-2), and zoom in on the bottom message. Isthis a message between you and Classic Baggie? A. Yes.
Q. What are you sending him in this message? A. This message I am sending him a picture of thecashier check that he had me make, and just sending it tohim so that he knows that I actually did it.
Q. What is the date on this message? A. It is December 17, 2020, -- I mean 2019, I'm sorry.
Q. Ms. Busch, could you pull up Government Exhibit402(k-3), which is a larger version of that attachment. Isthat the cashier check you obtained at Classic Baggiedirection? A. Yes.
Q. How much money is that cashier check for? A. $122,312.
Q. Who is made payable to? A. Bespoke Motor Group.
Q. Would that name come up time and time again over thecourse of your relationship with Classic Baggie? A. Yes.
Q. What do you understand was going to happen with that$122,000 check? A. He was going to buy a car with it.
Q. Ms. Busch, could you please pull up GovernmentExhibit 402(o). Zoom in on that top message. This messagebetween you and Classic Baggie? A. Correct, yes.
Q. What's the date on this message? A. December 28, 2019.
Q. And we'll fill in some of these gaps, by this timeare you fully invested in the money laundering conspiracy? A. Yes.
Q. You know what's going on? A. Yes.
Q. There are no tricks going on? A. Right.
Q. So can you walk us through what this message meansand why you were sending it to Classic Baggie, and juststart with that top line, deposit, what payment means, whatcommission means, what balance means? A. Okay. So he sent $261,000. This is basically anaccounting of everything that was done with the money thathe sent. The commission was ten percent of the whole thing,and 90 percent to be sent back to him in various ways. Sopayment one, payment two, all those payments, everything,the instruction that he sent, whether it's a cashier checkor like wire or whatever it is, this is basically outliningeverything and so he knows exactly what was done with themoney, what was left and everything like that, like themoney order, there is a fee $75,000, it was $10,000, sobasically everything that was done, had to be documented sohe knows exactly what was done with the money so you know,there is no confusion, it tells you his balance so he knowswhat he has left and what he wants to do with it.
Q. Is this generally over the course of the relationshipwith Classic Baggie how you would document and account forall the money coming in and going out? A. Yes. Yes. He required that.
Q. And every payment listed, was there a specificinstruction that came to you from Classic Baggie about howmuch money to get and who to send it to? A. Yes.
Q. You talked about your admission of ten percent onthat $261,000 wire. So how much money was that? A. $26,000. 26,100.
Q. Is that the most money you had ever made in your lifeat that point? A. Yes.
Q. At least at one time? A. Yeah.
Q. Was it the easiest way to make money? A. Yes.
Q. How did that feel? A. I had $200, so to have $26,000 at once, it's lifechanging for me, yeah, I felt like I was rich.
Q. And did you talk to Rita Assane and Dwight Bainesabout this? A. Yeah. Yeah.
Q. Did you guys get excited about the prospect of whatcould happen here? A. Yeah, for sure. We went out to eat, you know,celebrated, all that stuff.
Q. Did you begin to realize exactly what was going on? A. Yeah.
Q. After getting that $261,000 wire, did you continue towork with Classic Baggie to receive money at his direction? A. Yes.
Q. And to move it at his direction? A. Yes.
Q. To who he asked you to move it to? A. Correct.
Q. Did you continue to receive anymore large depositsdirectly into your own bank account? A. No.
Q. So is this when Rita Assane and Dwight Baines gotmore actively involved? A. Yes.
Q. In the days following that $261,000 deposit? A. Yes.
Q. Can you explain why you got them involved at thattime? A. It was first Classic Baggie wanted more accounts,more business accounts to be opened, more business accountsso he could send money to. And I just couldn't do it, itwas too much for me and it was easier also for me todelegate it, I also was excited to work, because I saw themoney, just put me on, I want to work, I'm ready, I will doit, so it's easy for them to join and just get started. Andso that's kind of how he got -- that's how he really gotstarted really.
Q. Were there any added benefit to you to having themget involved and open up bank accounts? A. Yeah, yeah, because first I didn't have to do itmyself because it's definitely nerve racking believe it ornot, to go to the bank and have to do a cashier check andjust not know what is going to happen, I didn't have to goto the bank anymore and I could still share the profit, theten percent between all of us, it was definitely a benefitto me, I was helping them out so they were also makingmoney, so that was also a benefit.
Q. Was your name on all those accounts? A. No, their name was on them.
Q. Was that also a benefit to you? A. Yes.
Q. Can you explain at a high level what Rita Assane'srole in this organization came to be? A. Sure. She was in charge of opening up LLC's. Ofcourse the more LLC's you have, the more business bankaccounts you can open, and the more money you can receive.So that's what she was doing, and also she had to receivemoney and send money to whoever she was supposed to sendmoney to according to -- from the instructions that weresent to us.
Q. The instructions sent to you by Classic Baggie? A. Yes.
Q. Did Dwight Baines have a similar role? A. Yes.
Q. Who were the primary LLC for businesses that RitaAssane used for this organization? A. KLAM Properties LLC and KLAM Entertainment LLC.
Q. What were the primary business or businesses thatDwight Baines used as part of this operation? A. Baines Properties LLC.
Q. Once you had Rita Assane and Dwight Baines involved,what did your role become? A. I was more of almost like a liaison, I would getinformation from Classic Baggie, like the instructions and Iwould just forward it to either Baines or Rita.
Q. Now, were you left to your own devise to figure outhow to do this or did Classic Baggie give you specificinstructions on what to do? A. He gave me very specific instructions on what to do.
Q. Can you explain some of the instructions that ClassicBaggie gave to you? A. He would tell me, for example, like to open upbusiness bank account instead of personal bank account, whatbank to open the account with.
Q. I want to briefly pause right there, why did he tellyou to open up business bank accounts instead of personalbank accounts? A. Yeah, he did say that business bank accounts is a loteasier to move money. I guess, you know, if you receive alarge sum of money in or take it out, take it out of youraccount, from a business perspective, it was easier and thebank would not request anything. Whereas, if it's apersonal bank account, when you receive a big amount ofmoney, or you go to take it out, it gets questioned becausethis is personal, personal people don't move money likethat, businesses are more lenient, the money in basis to do.
Q. Did he also advise to you at what particular banks toopen accounts? A. Yes.
Q. What did he tell you about that? A. He said that bigger banks are easier for sometransaction, and then some small banks are also good forsome type of transactions.
Mr. Hermann confronts Classic Baggie about his source of funds (and learns about Romance Scams)
Q. At some point while accounts are getting opened andyou, Rita Assane and Dwight Baines are getting off theground, do you have a conversation with Classic Baggie aboutexactly where all this money was coming from that you weredirecting your way? A. Yes.
Q. Can you tell me about that conversation? A. Yeah. It came about when one of the accounts was onhold, frozen for like -- for a certain reason and we didn'tunderstand why. And the bank started asking questions whichat first everything was fine and then it just became morerowdy, you have to close it, you have to send someinformation, there are some fraud things going on so webecame concerned --
Q. I want to briefly pause you, just to orient the juryto when this conversation was taking place, was this kind ofalso in mid December when this was all getting started? A. Yes, yes, yes, so it was around December, and so whenthat happened, first it wasn't my account at the time, itwas Rita's account, so she was concerned, and she was likeneed to try to figure out what's going on here because hetold us everything is supposed to be fine, and now they'recalling her and things like that. She started to be alittle bit scared, so I had to have a serious conversationwith him because he made us feel like everything is good,this is his own account or -- at first he said somethingabout it was -- it's business partners like the Saudi andthe one that sent money, he had businesses in the U.S., wewere comfortable, even though it was a little funny. Butwhen the accounts started being on hold and frozen, the bankis calling, then it's like is it really your stuff, you gotto tell me what's going on here, this is not my personalaccount, I'm involved with other people, I want to knowwhat's going on, otherwise it's not going to fly, so youhave to tell me what's going on.
Q. Let's get to that in a second. But within a week orso of getting your first large deposit into your bankaccount and working with Classic Baggie, all these issueswith the bank started coming up? A. Yes.
Q. And red flags were being raised by the bank? A. Yes.
Q. Within a week? A. Yeah.
Q. So tell me more about this conversation with ClassicBaggie where you confronted him about where this money wasreally coming from? A. So when I asked him, he basically explained to methat he had everything under control because the people thatare sending the money are actual people who send the moneyto people -- okay, the people that send the money will notrecall the money because they have them under control. Soand so when I ask him to elaborate more, he told me that itwas his people that are in the love relationship with him.
Q. What do you mean by -- can you explain about hispeople being in the love relationship with them? A. So he told me there was a love thing, so a love scam,right. And so the people that he works with have thesepeople under control. That basically are the partners orthe lovers, and instruct them to send the money to us so wecan send the money back to them. The reason why the bankaccount wouldn't freeze or anything could happen is becausethe person that is in love is actually going to the bank andsending the money to us, so there is no reason for them torecall it or for anything to happen. It wasn't stolenmoney, somebody goes into an account and hack it and send itto you where you can get in trouble, so they will fix it, itwill only be a problem, you have to focus on working becauseit will get taken care of.But the explanation that he give me in detailwas more like his people that he's working with basicallyhave the people that send us the money like in control, likethey control them, they'll work with them, they're in lovewith them, and so they basically send us the money andeverything will be fine.
Q. And did Classic Baggie describe these people who arein love, about what type of people they were? A. Yeah. They were older people that had money. Andthey think they in love with this person that is behind acomputer, and they asking them for favors, and the favorsturned into money, and that's when they start sending moneyto help them out.
Q. Did you have a conversation with Classic Baggie aboutwhether those favors were based in the truth or based inlies? A. Yeah. I mean, it was tricky, you know, he didexplain that those are the things they do online, theybasically find older people that have money and get them outof their money, trick them out of their money and have themsend us the money and take our percentage I guess and sendthe rest to them.
Q. Were you doing anything for these people sending you,Rita Assane and Dwight Baines money? A. No.
Q. Now, you talked about being comforted because ClassicBaggie said the money wouldn't get recalled or anything,this wasn't stolen money. Could you talk in a little bitmore detail first by what you mean by the money won't getrecalled and why that comforted you? A. Yeah, he did -- well the reason why it comforted meand us altogether, is because the first part is never goingto come back where like the person -- he explained that itwasn't stolen, so that is good enough first of all, becausethe person actually goes to the bank, if it's Sally orwhoever, they sit there and actually sent us the money. Sothat was, okay, at least it's not stolen, they're not goingto come after us or whatever, but the second thing it wasthat if anything happened, he could fix it, that was anotherway to -- you know, that we felt also comfortable.
Q. And when you say the money wasn't stolen, do you meanthat the money was not taken without the sender's knowledge? A. Right, right. Right.
Mr. Hermann Explains How Classic Baggie's Operation Worked
BY MR. WENGER:Q. Over the course of your working relationship with Classic Baggie, did you gain an understanding of how hisoperation worked? A. Yes.
Q. Was that based on conversations with Classic Baggie? A. Yes.
Q. And doing things at his direction? A. Yes.
Q. Can you explain at a high level how you understoodhis operation to work? A. Yes, sure. For the sake of I guess, administration,I will call the people doing scam, the actual, what I callvictim, and fraudsters, just to -- so everybody follow andunderstand the way I understand. So Step 1, is that thefraudsters create an online profile, like a dating profile.With the dating profile targeting a certain number ofpeople, older people with money, they get to talk to them,get them to fall in love with them and get to ask forcertain favors and those favors are you know, money, smallgift and things like that. And so after the clients -- Imean not clients, the victims agree to --
Q. Stop right there, you just used the terms clients.Is that a term that you had used with Classic Baggie? A. Yeah.
Q. Is that how he would refer to what you have describedas the victims? A. Yeah. You refer to them as clients.
Q. That was the terminology you would use, clients? A. Right. Right. I would say that's my partner'sclients, things like that. But I wanted everybody to followso I said victim and fraudsters. And so they would createthe profile, get them to fall in love with them. And afterthey fall in love with them, then they can ask them forfavors including money and they would tell them they havelike certain issues or whatever, they need money forinvestment like whatever it is, they want to invest in abusiness or an estate, things like that, and the client thensends money. That's Step 1. The Step 2 is when the clientis getting ready to send the money --
Q. Quick pause. Step 1, was it ever explained to youhow long it might take for Step 1 to be completed, how longit took to convince someone to send money for an onlinerelationship? A. That I'm not a hundred percent sure, I couldn't saysomething I don't know, but I'm assuming it might take a fewmonths or a few weeks, it's the older people, too, that'sthe reason for the target because of their need forcompanionship from what I understand.
Q. You were about to explain Step 2? A. Step 2 now that they prep them, they're ready to sendthe money because they're in love and they want to helptheir lovers which is fraudsters. Step 2, now they'regetting ready to send money, there is no account to send themoney to, they can't send to them because a lot of timesthey're not in U.S. or Nigeria sometime, they might be inthe US, they don't want association with that bank account.Step 2 is when we come in, they find people like me or Ritaor whatever to open bank account where they can send themoney to, and the money can be -- you know they can dowhatever it is. Step 2 is to get the bank accounts, whichthey will find people like me or whatever, get them to opena business bank account and send the money to. And thenStep 3 is how they recover the money back to them, so wekeep the ten percent, and the 90 percent goes back towhoever organized the whole account or whatever it is, andso he can go back to the people that actually started thefraud which is the fraudsters. So that's what I understoodthe whole thing to work.
Q. Do you have an understanding based on yourconversation with Classic Baggie about how he got some ofthis money back in Nigeria? A. Yes. And he got it in few different ways, either itwill be through let's say, it will be through buying a car,like he'll buy a car in the U.S. and ship it, the car willbe bought with the money that we have in our bank accountfor example, and the car gets shipped to Nigeria, and whenit gets to Nigeria, they sell it and he recovers his moneythat way. Originally he said that he had a money transferbusiness where people, for example, give him money inNigeria, 10,000, whatever amount and then he would give themthe money in equivalent in the U.S., so he will also -- andthe money that he will give in the U.S. of course will be inour bank account and you would tell me or you know, justsend so much amount of money to this person and you would doit. So that's how he also recovers the money that way.
Q. Did Classic Baggie ever tell you how maybe peopleworked for him as part of this operation? A. Yeah, he told me over 20 people in the U.S. andmultiple others outside of the country.
Q. Did Classic Baggie ever tell you whether he had anyfriends or relatives in America? A. He told me he had a girlfriend in the U.S.
Q. I want to shift your attention and talk a little bitabout the day-to-day logistics of how you, Rita Assane andDwight Baines laundered money for Classic Baggie. Can youfirst describe the different ways that you, Rita Assane andDwight Baines received money? A. Sure. We received money through multiple differentways, either it will be a check that will be sent to us inthe mail, or it will be a wire that will hit the account.Or it will be a check deposited into the account, those arethe various ways.
Q. Let's focus on these checks getting mailed to you fora second, did you know any of these people sending checks? A. No.
Q. How did they know how and where to send checks toyou? A. So, Classic Baggie, I will send -- he will ask foraddresses, whether its business address or whatever address,and we will send it to him, so he will then send thatinformation to the fraudsters or the love, whoever, youknow, and they would take that, those checks -- not checks,the address and forward it to whoever needs to send themoney.
Q. Did it work the same way for wire transfers, did heknow the people transferring money by wire into these bankaccounts? A. No, not directly, no.
Q. Do you know how they got the bank account informationfor your bank accounts and Rita's bank accounts and DwightBaines's bank accounts? A. It would be through Classic Baggie.
Q. Was Classic Baggie the only person you gave youraddress and the bank account information to? A. Yes.
Q. So now I want to turn your attention to after the --after a check was received as part of this operation, canyou explain what would happen next? A. After a check is received, the first thing is that wehad to send the picture of the check to Classic Baggie sojust to -- he knows -- so he knows that we actually receivea check so we have to send a confirmation. That was arequirement. After you send a confirmation, you have to goto the bank and deposit the money into your bank account andhe would tell us which one to deposit it into, because hehad access to all the big bank account, he said I know youhave money coming in this account, don't put the money here,put the money into this account instead. So he would saysomething like that, and you would put the money in theaccount, you would send a receipt that it's been deposited,and it takes two days to pay, and after that, he would sendinstruction on what to do with it.
Q. After the money became available either through acheck clearing, or a wire deposit made into an account, canyou explain the instructions you would receive from ClassicBaggie about what to do next? A. Yeah, so after the check clears, he would send me,you know, the name, address, or wire info, or you know,account number with the amount of money that he wanted to besent to whoever, and then we just do it.
Q. And would you personally be doing this or did youforward those instructions on to other people? A. I would forward it to either to Rita or Baines.
Q. Can you explain some of the different ways thatClassic Baggie asked you to distribute money to otherpeople? A. The different ways would be again, through moneyorders cashier check, or wire.
Q. For the cashier checks, how would you get it to thepeople you were instructed to get it to? A. The cashier check would be either, either you havethe bank account so you deposit directly to the bank accountor you mail it to them.
Q. What was the primary means that you used to mailthese cashier checks? A. FedEx.
Q. What did you have to do or what were you instructedto do after a FedEx shipment was made at Classic Baggie'sdirection? A. After a FedEx shipment was made, you have to take apicture of the receipt with a tracking number and send it tohim so he knows that it's actually been done.
Q. Was that something that would happen every time aFedEx shipment was made? A. Yes.
Q. Typically, who would be taking the picture of thatFedEx receipt? A. It would be Rita or Baines, and they would forward tome, and I would forward to him.
Q. Did you keep track of the money that was gettingdeposited into the bank accounts opened by Rita Assane andDwight Baines? A. Yeah.
Q. Were all those deposits directed your way fromClassic Baggie? A. Say that again, I'm sorry.
Q. Were the deposits being made into those bank accountsall directed to you by Classic Baggie? A. Yes, correct.
Q. What was your understanding of the source of all thatmoney? A. After a while, we knew that it was from thesevictims.
Q. Now, over the months, maybe a year you were workingwith Classic Baggie, were you instructed to send money tojust a couple people or to a whole bunch of people andbusinesses? A. A whole bunch of people.
Q. Was there one person that Classic Baggie instructedyou to send money to more frequently than anybody else? A. Yes.
Q. Who was that? A. Lawal.
Q. Did you ever ask Classic Baggie why you were sendingso much money to Lawal? A. Yes.
Q. What did he tell you? A. Well, I remember exactly when that happened becauseit was a payment that we had to send to him that was -- thathad taken time because it was a smaller bank and theywouldn't release the money, and he thought it was our faultso he basically called me to curse me out, like you need tobe moving faster than this, you know, this person need hismoney, Lawal needs his money, and he was like that's hismoney, you know. And basically, he said if we don't movefast enough, no money is going to come, money is not goingto keep coming because you're moving too slow, he's the onesending the money so you need to hurry up and get the moneyout of the way.
Q. And the way Classic Baggie described his money, whois the his in that sentence? A. Lawal.
Q. And all of that money that was described as Lawal'smoney, where was that money coming from? A. From the victims.
Q. And is there a word that Classic Baggie used todescribe his relationship with Mr. Lawal? A. Yes, it was his partner.
Q. His partner and what? A. His partner, and you said.
Q. You said his partner in what? A. In the romance fraud thing they had going on.
Q. Can you turn your attention to GovernmentExhibit 402(q), in that larger binder in front of you.Ms. Busch, if you could please pull up GovernmentExhibit 402(q).Zoom in on that top message, please, Ms. Busch.Can you briefly state who these messages are between? A. This is a forwarded message between Classic Baggieand I.
Q. What was the date of this message? A. January 6, 2020.
Q. And what did you understand it to mean when that termforwarded appears on the top left-hand corner? A. It was basically a message that I was forwarded fromClassic Baggie, from another person to Classic Baggie and hesent it to me.
Q. Can you read what is contained in this message? A. Sure. Olugbenga Lawal, 3470 Highfield court,Indianapolis, Indiana 46222.
Q. Ms. Busch, can you scroll down to the bottom messageof page 1.What are you asking Classic Baggie in thismessage? A. I'm asking him how much to send to that address thatthey send.
Q. Ms. Busch, if you turn to the last page of thisexhibit. Zoom in on the bottom message.What does that state? A. Do 10K, 10,000 money order.
Q. Based on your reading of these messages between youand Classic Baggie, what do you understand Classic Baggie tobe asking you to do on January 6th of 2020? A. He's asking me to send the $10,000 money order toLawal, Olugbenga Lawal at the address in Highfield Court inIndianapolis, Indiana.
Q. Please turn to the portion of this binder that is the300 series of exhibits, and turn first to GovernmentExhibit 301(a). Look up at me when you have gotten yourselfto 301(a). A. Yes.
Q. If you could just briefly take a moment to lookthrough 301(a) through 315, just to get an understanding ofwho these messages are between. A. You said 301(a) through 315?
Q. Yes. A. (Witness reviewing. ) Yes.
Q. And who are these messages between? A. These are messages between Rita Assane and I.
Q. And is there any common theme to most of thosemessages? A. Yeah. It is our forwarded messages for the most partthat I sent to Ms. Rita Assane from Classic Baggie.
Q. Ms. Busch, could we please pull up GovernmentExhibit 301(a). And if you could zoom in on the bottommessage.Can you explain what is happening in thismessage, Mr. Hermann? A. Sure. Again, this is a forwarded message fromClassic Baggie that I sent over to Rita with instructions tosend $20,000 cashier check, and a $7,200 money order mailedto Lawal Olugbenga at 3470 Highfield Court Indianapolis,Indiana 46222.
Q. What's the date of that message? A. January 14, 2020.
Q. Thank you, Ms. Busch.Mr. Hermann, can you turn to GovernmentExhibit 303. A. Yes.
Q. What's the date of this message? A. January 24, 2020.
Q. And what's going on in the message in GovernmentExhibit 303? A. This is another forwarded message from Classic Baggiethat I sent over to Rita Assane with instruction to send$54,000 to Lawal Olugbenga at 3470 Highfield CourtIndianapolis, Indiana 46222.
Q. Ms. Busch could you please pull up the top message ofGovernment Exhibit 303.Is that the message you were just referring to? A. Yes.
Q. Ms. Busch, can you scroll down to the second message?That contains the amount, $54,000? A. Correct.
Q. Can you please turn to Government Exhibit 305? A. Sure.
Q. What's the date of this message? A. This is January 31st, 2020.
Q. Ms. Busch, could you please pull up GovernmentExhibit 305 and zoom in on the top message?Mr. Hermann, what do you understand the messagesto mean in Government Exhibit 305? A. This is another forwarded message from Classic Baggiethat I sent over to Rita Assane with instruction to sendLawal Olugbenga at the address 3470 Highfield CourtIndianapolis, Indiana 46222 for a sum of $20,000 in acashier check.
Q. Can you scroll down to that second message. Pleaseturn to Government Exhibit 306, Mr. Hermann. Thank you,Ms. Busch.Take a moment to read through these messages. A. (Witness reviewing documents. )
Q. What's the date on these messages, Mr. Hermann? A. February 4th, 2020.
Q. And what did you take away from the messages youexchanged between yourself and Ms. Assane in this exhibit? A. In this exhibit, we are discussing checks that usedto be going to Lawal with the amount of $13,200, for theamount with the address of Lawal at 3470 Highfield CourtIndianapolis, Indiana 46222, so that's another payment for$13,200.
Q. Ms. Busch, would you please pull up GovernmentExhibit 306 and zoom in on page two, the second to lastmessage.What are you instructed Ms. Assane there? A. I'm instructing her to send $13,200.
Q. Can you scroll down to the last message, that is theaddress you're instructing her to send it to? A. Yes.
Q. Lawal Olugbenga? A. Yes.
Q. Can you zoom out to this whole page. This looks alittle bit different than the other messages. We didn'tlook at messages in foreign language just now, but are someof these messages in a dialect of French? A. Yes.
Q. And have we gone over instances where those messageshave been translated? A. Sure.
Q. For certain select messages? A. Yes.
Q. And when we have done that, have we gone over whetheryou agree or not with the translations? A. Sure, yes.
Q. These aren't translations you did, correct? A. No.
Q. Have you generally agreed with the translations asthey have appeared on the documents that have beentranslated? A. Yes.
Q. Thank you, Ms. Busch.Mr. Hermann, can you turn to GovernmentExhibit 307. Ms. Busch, if you could pull up the bottommessage of Government Exhibit 307. Take a look at thisGovernment Exhibit, Mr. Hermann and tell me what's going onin these messages. A. Sure. In this message, this is also forwardedmessage from Classic Baggie that I sent over to Rita Assane,and this is more instructions to send, in this case, $50,000to Lawal Olugbenga at the address 3470 Highfield CourtIndianapolis, Indiana.
Q. What is the date of this message? A. February 6, 2020.
Q. Can you scroll down to the top of page 2. That'swhere you -- the amount you understood you had to send toLawal Olugbenga? A. Correct.
Q. If you could turn to Government Exhibit 308(a).Ms. Busch, if you could just zoom in only on the top messageof 308(a).Mr. Hermann, what do you understand this messageto mean? A. This is a message that I sent to Rita Assane,basically saying he want cashier check from the Chaseaccount, $3,500 mailed to Lawal.
Q. Who is the he in that message? A. Classic Baggie.
Q. I don't see that as a forwarded message, where wouldyou have gotten that instruction from? A. I got it from him.
Q. Him being Classic Baggie? A. Classic Baggie, yes.
Q. And you agree with that English translation of yourmessage? A. Yes. Yes.
Q. Can you turn to Government Exhibit 308(c).Ms. Busch, can you please pull up Government Exhibit 308(c),and zoom in only on that middle message. What's the date onthat message, Mr. Hermann? A. February 11, 2020.
Q. Can you read the English translation of that message? A. Sure. It says because really we ship too much tothis Lawal.
Q. Why did you send that to Ms. Assane? A. I sent that because we were sending way too manyshipments or cashier checks to that same address, it keptcoming up and we're sending it without real name, realaddress and everything like that, so we're concerned at somepoint there is going to be some issues, so I'm telling herto be careful, we need to use a different name or not putour own name on that shipment because it became too much,too frequent.
Q. Turn to Government Exhibit 310. Can you briefly readthrough the first and second page, and tell me what thesemessages mean? A. These are more forwarded message that -- well, moreinstructions that are sent to Rita with Lawal Olugbenga'saddress to send $50,000.
Q. Ms. Busch, can you please pull up the top message onthe first page of Government Exhibit 310?Why are you sending that name and address toMs. Assane? A. I sent it from instruction from Classic Baggie tosend more money to Lawal.
Q. Ms. Busch, can you scroll down to the next message?What is Ms. Assane writing here? A. Yes.
Q. What is Ms. Assane writing here? A. Oh, $50,000.
Q. Can you go to the next message, Ms. Busch. And go tothe top message on page 2.What did you respond? A. I responded yes.
Q. And what did you mean when you said yes? A. Yes, $50,000.
Q. Can you turn to Government Exhibit 311? What do youunderstand these messages to mean, Mr. Hermann? A. These are forwarded messages from Classic Baggie thatI sent to Rita with instruction to send $87,000 to LuxeLogistics LLC, to the PNC Bank account, and I sent also theaccount number and address.
Q. Where did you get all that information from? A. From Classic Baggie.
Q. Ms. Busch, can you scroll down to the next message?Is that why you're referring to sending $87,000? A. Yes.
Q. Mr. Hermann, can you please turn to what's marked asGovernment Exhibit 312(b). Ms. Busch, if you could pleasepull up the bottom message through 12(b).That indicates a forwarded message. Who wouldthat have been forwarded from? A. From Classic Baggie.
Q. Can you read what that says on that message? A. My own address 3512 North Dukane Way Indianapolis,Indiana 46224.
Q. And what is the date of that message? A. This is February -- this is April 3rd, 2020.
Q. Now, did you live at 3512 North Dukane Way? A. No.
Q. Did Classic Baggie live at 3512 North Dukane Way? A. No.
Q. Who did you learn was associated with 3512 NorthDukane Way? A. Lawal.
Q. Please turn to Government Exhibit 313. Ms. Busch, ifyou could pull up the top message of Government Exhibit 313.Who did you forward this message from? A. From Classic Baggie to Rita.
Q. What is the date of this message? A. April 4th, 2020.
Q. Can you please read this message? A. Sure. Help me send the money order to my newaddress, 3512 North Dukane Way Indianapolis, Indiana 46224.
Q. Ms. Busch can you scroll down to the second message.What does that message say? A. Lawal Olugbenga.
Q. Ms. Busch, can you please scroll to the next messageon the top of page 2?What does that message say? A. 10K money order.
Q. What were you instructing Ms. Assane to do duringthese messages? A. Instructing her to send a $10,000 money order toLawal Olugbenga at the new address that was provided to us.
Q. Can you turn to Government Exhibit 315? And couldyou briefly describe while Ms. Busch pulls up the topmessage, what's going on in these messages? A. Sure. This is another forwarded message from ClassicBaggie that I sent over to Rita, instructing her to send$5,000 money order to Lawal so --
Q. Can you scroll down to the middle message? A. Lawal Olugbenga 3512 North Dukane Way Indianapolis,Indiana 46224.
Q. Can you read that message, Mr. Hermann, put that upon the screen? A. Sure. You can mail money order to Lawal Olugbenga3512 North Dukane Way Indianapolis, Indiana 46224.
Q. Where did you forward that message from? A. From Classic Baggie.
Q. Now, we just looked at quite a few messages betweenJanuary 2020, and the April of 2020 and we may look at oneor two more. That every single instruction that you eversent to Ms. Assane concerning Mr. Lawal? A. Yeah. I mean, not, is it every single instruction?Yeah, for the most part, yeah.
Q. For the most part that was the number of times youwere instructing Ms. Assane to send money? A. Right. Correct.
Q. Mr. Hermann, can you turn your attention to what'smarked as 405(a). Can you just let me know when you havereached 405(a). A. Yes.
Q. Now, are these messages between different people inthis exhibit? A. Yes, this is messages between Dwight Baines and I.
Q. And Ms. Busch, if we could please pull up the bottommessage of Government Exhibit 405(a). What are you -- whatdoes this message mean? A. This is instruction that I sent to Dwight Baines,basically from Luxe Logistics LLC, to send 19,247.
Q. Is this the example of the type of instruction youwould also send to Dwight Baines as part of your moneylaundering operation? A. Yes.
Q. Thank you, Ms. Busch. All this money, the $50,000checks, the $13,200 checks, the $10,000 in money orders,what was the source of every dollar of that money you wereinstructing people to send to Lawal? A. What was that question again?
Q. What was the source, where did all the money comefrom that you were sending to Lawal? A. It was from the romance fraud victims.
Q. That was your understanding? A. Yes.
Q. I want to shift gears just a little bit. Were youever made aware that Rita Assane or Dwight Baines hadproblems getting the money out of the accounts that had beendeposited? A. Yes.
Q. And we talked about some of those issues? A. Yes.
Q. Would you bring those issues to Classic Baggie'sattention? A. Yes.
Q. Would you have conversations with him about it? A. Yes.
Q. What could he do about it? A. He could possibly fix it sometimes, sometimes hecouldn't, but we had to write it to his attention ifsomething happens.
Q. How could he fix it, was he calling the banks? A. No.
Q. Could you explain how that happened, how he couldever fix a problem you were having with one of your bankaccounts? A. Well, first we have to tell him if anything happensbecause then he would think that we did it or we trying tosteal his money. But we had to tell him because he couldcontact the people that sent the money to try to contact thebank or you know, something like that and fix the problem.
Q. Did you ever have issues with -- either you, RitaAssane, or Dwight Baines have issues with withdrawn money bya woman that had been sent and deposited into your accountsby the name of Debra? A. Yes.
Q. Did you bring those issues to Classic Baggie'sattention? A. Yes.
Q. Can you flip in your binder to what is marked as402(k-4) through 402(k-9). Please take a moment to look ateach of those exhibits in 402(k-4) through 402(k-9) and lookup at me when you have had a chance to do that. A. (Witness reviewing documents. ) Yes.
Q. And are those conversations between yourself andClassic Baggie? A. Yes.
Q. And what are you discussing over the course of thoseGovernment Exhibits? A. In these messages, we discussing pretty much, it's asituation that happened where $60,000 was stuck, frozen oron hold from the bank, and we couldn't get the money outwhat I contacted him for so he could help and try to figureout exactly what happened, what's going on. And in here, heis sending me the conversation between the victim and thefraud center in this situation to try to fix the situation,trying to fix the issue.
Q. Ms. Busch, can you pull up GovernmentExhibit 402(k-4) and go right on the middle message. Isthat what you're describing when you said Classic Baggiesent you a screen shot of the conversation between thevictim and their lover? A. Yes.
Q. Could we please pull up the larger version of thatattachment, Government Exhibit 402(k-5). Can you explainwhat exactly you understood this conversation, who youunderstand this conversation to be between? A. Yes. So this is a conversation between the actualvictim and the lover, here she is mentioning that they needan invoice, I guess the bank needed an invoice, to, you knowthat we had to make an invoice from KLAM Property that showsthat the $60,000 she sent is actually legitimate to makesure those are her pattern or it matches whatever she issaying, whatever she sent.
Q. So Classic Baggie had that message to send to you? A. Yes.
Q. And what did you do -- thank you, Ms. Busch -- as aresult of this conversation with Classic Baggie? A. I made an invoice.
Q. And Ms. Busch, could we please pull up GovernmentExhibit 402(k-8). And zoom in on that bottom message.Does that reflect you sending an attachment toClassic Baggie? A. Yes.
Q. Ms. Busch, could you pull up 402(k-9), whichattachment contained on that message. Is this the invoicewe were just talking about? A. That's correct, yes.
Q. Who created this invoice? A. I did.
Q. Who did you send it to? A. That is Classic Baggie.
Q. What was the purpose of this invoice? A. Is to resolve the issue of the $60,000 that was onhold.
Q. What's the name in the to line of this invoice? A. Debra Ann Czodli.
Q. Did you understand that to be the victim who messageyou were sent by Classic Baggie? A. Correct.
Q. I want to talk a little bit more and turn yourattention back to the role that cars played in the moneylaundering operation you did with Classic Baggie. And wetouched on this a little bit earlier in your testimony. Wetalked about the name Bespoke? A. Yes.
Q. Can you explain whether that name is an entity youwere instructed to send money to over and over again? A. Yes. Bespoke was one of the first checks that wasissued under Classic Baggie's instruction, the $122,000, itwas sent to Bespoke.
Q. Did he send you more instructions to send money toBespoke after that? A. Yes.
Q. What other types of car dealerships or places thatsold cars would be instructed to send money to? A. We got to make checks payable to auction places, carauctions, and other regular dealerships to buy differentcars.
Q. And do you remember the name of any of those carauction houses? A. Sure, one of them was IA A. And another one wasCopart.
Q. What was your understanding of what was happeningwith all these checks that you were making payable to carauction houses and car dealerships? A. My understanding is that they bid on those carsearly, buy them, win the bid, and then we have to go cut thecheck, whatever amount you tell me to, and just pay them sothe car can be paid off so you know, it didn't sit on theauction or whatever. So they already bid on and everything,everything is taken care of, they say pay it so we can pickit up and ship it and do what we had to do.
Q. Where did these cars get shipped? A. For the most part, Nigeria.
Q. That's based on conversations you had with ClassicBaggie? A. Yes.
Q. Again, what money were you, Rita Assane, and DwightBaines using when sending these checks to the car auctionhouses and the car dealerships? A. We were using the romance money that was depositedinto an account.
Q. At some point were you contacted by the FBI inrelation to all this money laundering activity? A. Yes.
Q. Do you remember that first time you were contacted bythe FBI? A. Yes.
Q. About when was it? A. It was around May of 2020.
Q. Did you tell Classic Baggie that the FBI hadcontacted you? A. Yes.
Q. Can you tell me about that conversation you had withhim? A. Sure. I remember I was with Rita and we called himfreaking out, like, you know, they contacted us andeverything like that, like what to do, are we going to be introuble, things like that. And he basically calmed us downand said that you know, it's going to be fine, get rid ofanything evidence wise that you have and he's going to tryto keep everything under control on his end, as far as theclient goes, if they don't talk, nobody will get in trouble,just to get everything and calm everyone else.
Q. Did you attempt to follow those instructions? A. Yes.
Q. Did you go into phones and delete messages? A. Yes.
Q. A lot of messages? A. Yes.
Q. Messages between yourself and Classic Baggie? A. Yes.
Q. Messages between yourself and Dwight Baines? A. Yes.
Q. Messages between yourself and Rita Assane? A. Yes.
Q. Did Classic Baggie ask if you had talked to the FBI? A. Yes.
Q. What did you tell him? A. I told him I didn't.
Q. Was that the truth at the time? A. Yeah, at the time it was.
MR. WENGER: At this time I have no furtherquestions, Your Honor.