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Man in counterfeiting case enters plea deal
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Posted on Sep 25 2000
A Cameroon tourist accused in a money counterfeiting scheme on Saipan copped a plea agreement with federal prosecutors on Friday, evading a trial in the U.S. District Court.
Andre Didier Tella, 31, admitted, through a French interpreter, his guilt on a charge of wire fraud in connection with the scheme to defraud a Chinese businessman based on the island.
District Judge Alex R. Munson set his sentencing on Nov. 8. But Mr. Tella, who is from the west central African nation’s capital of Yuande, remains in jail.
The defendant arrived here on a visitor’s visa last April 4, but was arrested a month later after the crime was uncovered by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
It involved counterfeiting $100 dollar bills by means of a chemical process which he and another suspect, Sylvester Etah, presented to Shi Ching Ke, owner of Mickies Bar on Saipan, to entice him to invest by providing real paper money.
The businessman handed over $130,000 to the two in exchange for $300,000 in fake hundred dollar bills that the two supposedly would manufacture.
FBI agents recovered $39,000 in U.S. currency, several chemicals and other miscellaneous products during a search at Mr. Tella’s rented room in Paradise Hotel.
The wire fraud charge, a felony, carries a maximum penalty of five years imprisonment, but the plea agreement would allow him to serve his term less than that.
