Lydia Fahnbulleh pleads guilty to money laundering but given chance for contrition

She thought she was about to be sentenced for her role in a scam – but now she has a final chance to help police track down the “mastermind” behind the plot.

A money launderer who walked into court on Tuesday expecting to be sentenced has been given one last chance by a magistrate to help police track down a scammer “mastermind”.

Lydia Fahnbulleh, 37 of Elizabeth Grove, faced the Elizabeth Magistrates Court where her counsel entered pleas of guilty to two counts of money laundering.

The pleas were for her part in a scam that ripped off more than $48,000 between October 2018 and December 2019.

While her defence counsel, David Nyamirandu, was midway through his submissions, and with Magistrate Ben Sale doubting Fahnbulleh’s remorse, she was given an 11th-hour adjournment.

Mr Sale told Mr Nyamirandu the adjournment was a last chance to give police every detail she had on an alleged Nigerian man the court heard was the mastermind of a “sophisticated” scam that left Fahnbulleh with thousands of dollars in her bank account.

Mr Nyamirandu told the court Fahnbulleh was “naive and gullible” and “as much a victim of the scam” as a man who had $21,000 drained from his bank account by an email hack.

Elizabeth Grove woman Lydia Fahnbulleh has pleaded guilty to money laundering as part of a scam. Picture: Facebook

“She’s an innocent player in somebody else’s crime,” he said.

The court heard Fahnbulleh was born in Ghana, abandoned by her mother and father and never had the chance to attend school, leaving her illiterate.

The court was told she had been roped into a scam by the man who she was living with and who convinced her to use her bank account to receive money from the scam.

When police discovered the scams, the man fled the country, Mr Nyamirandu told the court, and Fahnbulleh cut off all correspondence with him.

Mr Sale questioned Fahnbulleh’s remorse when he heard she had not given police details about the man.

“You see how someone might think it’s highly convenient that (Fahnbulleh) is able to blame this mystery man and say: ‘I was an innocent tool of this person, I’m ignorant, I’m illiterate, I had no idea’,” he said.

“Yet there is nothing that can be used to support that and she’s not shown that she’s willing to co-operate with authorities.

“She seems to have been playing a fairly important role – she’s the cog in the machine of getting the money on the first two occasions to the ‘mastermind’.”

Mr Sale adjourned the matter until July.