A Silver Spring man convicted in November of laundering the proceeds from heroin sales was sentenced yesterday to 10 years and one month in federal prison.
Joseph A. Dadzie, 42, was the president of the First African Forex Bureau, which from a "nerve center" in Takoma Park laundered as much as $6.5 million in heroin profits, primarily for West African drug traffickers, according to prosecutors in U.S. District Court in Baltimore.
The prison term is to be followed by two years of supervised release.
Dadzie's New Jersey associate Jacob E. Rockson, 48, was sentenced Tuesday to seven years and three months in prison followed by three years of supervised release for his role in the laundering conspiracy.
Dadzie and First African employees in branches in New Jersey, Illinois and Massachusetts also wired cash overseas, dividing the transactions into increments of less than $10,000, spacing them out over several days and concealing the identity of depositors, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas M. DiBiagio.
Defense attorney R. Kenneth Mundy called Dadzie "a simple, humble person" who had risen from jobs as a busboy and cabdriver since coming here from Ghana in 1980. He was revered among local Ghanaian immigrants for providing a fast, reliable way for people to send money home to relatives, said his pastor, the Rev. Robert Ansah of United Christian Church in Chevy Chase.
But U.S. District Judge Benson E. Legg said: "This case is a lesson in the corrupting influence of drugs and drug money. . . . In my view, the people who launder the drugs are just as responsible as the people who grow it, import it and sell it."
In imposing a sentence at the low end of federal guidelines, the judge acknowledged Dadzie's wife, mother, two children and about 25 supporters who crowded into the sentencing hearing, many murmuring prayers during the 2 1/2 -hour proceeding.
Mr. Mundy said he would appeal the conviction and sentence.