Chicago Man Charged in Federal Court With Trafficking Dozens of Firearms to West Africa (DOJ)

CHICAGO - A Chicago man has been charged with federal firearm violations for allegedly trafficking dozens of firearms from the United States to the West African nation of Ghana.

A criminal complaint filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Chicago charges ANTHONY NEE AMOO, 54, with willfully exporting firearms in violation of U.S. laws and regulations. Nee Amoo was arrested on Monday and remains in federal custody. A detention hearing is set for Thursday at 2:00 p.m. before U.S. Magistrate Judge Jeffrey Cole.

According to the complaint, Nee Amoo purchased 71 firearms in northern Illinois from 2006 to 2024 and exported them to Ghana by either personally traveling with the guns or shipping them in vehicles or barrels. The complaint alleges that Nee Amoo did not declare the firearms or inform the shippers about them. He also lacked a U.S. license to export the guns, the complaint states. For each of the 29 firearms Nee Amoo purchased since October 2020, he signed a federal form warning him that exporting a firearm without proper authorization from the U.S. government subjects him to a fine or imprisonment, the charges allege.

The complaint was announced by Morris Pasqual, Acting United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, and Christopher Amon, Special Agent-in-Charge of the Chicago Field Division of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. The government is represented by Assistant U.S. Attorneys LeighAnn M. Thomas and Michael Maione.

The investigation is being conducted in coordination with ATF's Crime Gun Intelligence Center of Chicago. The CGIC is a centralized law enforcement hub that focuses exclusively on investigating and preventing gun violence in Chicago and throughout northern Illinois. The CGIC is an interagency collaboration that brings together - under one roof - federal, state, and local law enforcement officers, prosecutors, and intelligence analysts to move quickly to investigate and prosecute violent crimes.

Disrupting illegal firearms trafficking is a centerpiece of the Department of Justice's cross-jurisdictional strike force aimed at reducing gun violence. As part of the Chicago firearms trafficking strike force, the U.S. Attorney's Office collaborates with the FBI, ATF, Chicago Police Department, and other federal, state, and local law enforcement partners in the Northern District of Illinois and across the country to help stem the supply of illegally trafficked firearms and identify patterns, leads, and potential suspects in violent gun crimes.

Holding firearm offenders accountable through federal prosecution is also a focus of Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN) - the Department of Justice's violent crime reduction strategy. In the Northern District of Illinois, the U.S. Attorney's Office and law enforcement partners have deployed the PSN program to attack a broad range of violent crime issues facing the district, particularly firearm offenses.

The public is reminded that a complaint contains only charges and is not evidence of guilt. The defendant is presumed innocent and entitled to a fair trial at which the government has the burden of proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. The charge in the complaint is punishable by up to ten years in federal prison.