New York — A former U.S. immigration lawyer, Kofi Amankwaa, has been sentenced to nearly six years in prison after admitting to defrauding numerous clients through a deceptive scheme that exploited U.S. immigration law, federal authorities said.
Amankwaa, 70, who is of Ghanaian descent, was sentenced on Feb. 26, 2025, to 70 months in federal custody for orchestrating a scheme that involved filing bogus claims under the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). These forms falsely accused family members of abuse to help clients improperly seek permanent residency status in the United States.
U.S. District Judge Katherine Polk Failla handed down the sentence following Amankwaa’s guilty plea on Sept. 17, 2024. The sentence also includes a mandatory three years of supervised release once Amankwaa completes his prison term.
Acting U.S. Attorney Matthew Podolsky, for the Southern District of New York, highlighted the gravity of Amankwaa’s actions, noting they represented a serious betrayal of trust and exploitation of both his clients and the legal system meant to protect genuine abuse victims.
According to the Department of Justice, from September 2016 to November 2023, Amankwaa charged his clients between $3,000 and $6,000 to file false I-360 petitions, claiming they were abused by a U.S. citizen child or other family member. He did so without their consent or knowledge, even signing the documents on their behalf.
Moreover, Amankwaa accrued additional profits by instructing his clients to travel abroad using advance parole documents, thus attempting to further their residency claims on their return, although many applications were ultimately unsuccessful due to fraud detection.
His fraudulent operations came to an end when some of his clients filed complaints, leading to the suspension of his New York law license in November 2023 and subsequent disbarment in August 2024.
In addition to the prison sentence, Amankwaa is required to forfeit $13,389,000 and pay restitution amounting to $16,503,425 to the victims of his fraudulent scheme.
The case of Kofi Amankwaa serves as a poignant reminder of the vulnerabilities within the immigration system and the dire consequences for those who choose to manipulate its protections designed to safeguard genuine victims of domestic violence.
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