Jafaar September Nyangoro

Introduction

Jafaar September Nyangoro, a 53-year-old man from Franklin, Tennessee, was sentenced on Monday, November 9, 2026, to three years and ten months in federal prison for his role in an email-compromise scheme that diverted more than $1.5 million in Fresno County payments away from a nonprofit and into a bank account he had opened . Nyangoro pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud, and the court ordered him to pay $1,178,000 in restitution . The scheme, run with a co-defendant based in Germany, hijacked a charity’s finance director’s email account and impersonated her to a county government for three weeks of fraudulent transfers .

Background Information

According to court documents, sometime before September 14, 2020, Nyangoro, co-defendant Peter Bah Acha, 46, of Berlin, Germany, and others secretly gained control of an email account used by the finance director of a Fresno nonprofit . Using that access, they submitted fraudulent invoices to Fresno County for payment through Automated Clearing House transactions . Posing as the finance director, they falsely told Fresno County that the nonprofit’s bank account information had changed and that payments should be sent to an account at a different bank — one Nyangoro had recently opened . Believing they were communicating with the legitimate nonprofit, county employees updated the bank account information .

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation

Convicted and sentenced. Nyangoro drew almost four years and a $1.18M restitution order for the wire-fraud conspiracy.

Between September 24 and October 13, 2020, Fresno County initiated several ACH transfers totaling more than $1.5 million to Nyangoro’s bank account instead of the nonprofit’s . At times, Nyangoro, Acha and others communicated through WhatsApp as the scheme progressed . On October 16, 2020, after Regions Bank reversed some of the ACH transfers for suspected fraud, Nyangoro sent a WhatsApp message that became part of the court record: “We’re in deep s***. The last 3 transactions from County of Fresno have been reversed. Please call me ASAP! There’s honor code among thieves. Let them tell us exactly what went wrong with these last 3 transactions.” Nyangoro pleaded guilty on June 22, and has been in custody since his initial appearance on May 29, 2025 . The FBI conducted the investigation, and Assistant U.S. Attorney David L. Gappa prosecuted the case .

Public Reaction and Consequences

The restitution order of $1,178,000 places on Nyangoro the debt of the money that never returned to the nonprofit — the sum the county’s payments shortchanged the charity once the reversed transfers were netted out of the stolen total . His own WhatsApp messages, entered in court documents, documented both the panic and the cynicism of the operation at the moment the fraud began unraveling, with the scheme’s participants discussing “exactly what went wrong with these last 3 transactions” after the bank flagged them . The case is part of the wider business-email-compromise pattern in which a single hijacked inbox is used to redirect an institution’s payments, and here the victims were a charity and the county employees who trusted the impersonated finance director .

Current Status

Nyangoro is serving a sentence of three years and ten months imposed on November 9, 2026, and owes $1,178,000 in restitution . He has been in federal custody since May 29, 2025, following his initial appearance . His co-defendant Peter Bah Acha was named in court documents as part of the same conspiracy, based in Berlin .

Impact on Their Career/Life

Nyangoro’s felony conviction and nearly four-year sentence close out the Fresno County payment-diversion case with him in federal custody and owing back more than $1.1 million . The scheme’s paper trail — a hijacked charity email account, fraudulent invoices, a freshly opened personal bank account, and WhatsApp messages discussing the fallout — now forms the public record of a fraud that took a nonprofit’s funding and a county’s trust along with it .

Sources

• KMPH FOX26, “Tennessee man sentenced to nearly 4 years for $1.18M Fresno County wire fraud scheme,” November 9, 2026 — source