The president of two companies known collectively as Overseas Investors this week pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud for defrauding an individual entrepreneur of $5 million primarily through false representations about his access to hedge funds and wealthy investors.

The president of two companies known collectively as Overseas Investors this week pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud for defrauding an individual entrepreneur of $5 million primarily through false representations on access to hedge funds and wealthy investors.

When sentenced on October 3, 2014, Thomas Bannon faces up to 20 years in prison and the payment of $5,001,949 in restitution to the defrauded entrepreneur.

Co-defendant Theodore Sweeten also pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud and was sentenced to 48 months in prison, according to a statement from the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

“Thomas Bannon claimed to be a money manager who had access to millions of dollars. In reality, Bannon was a con man and the only access he had was to the phony bank documents that he used to perpetrate this bold fraud,” stated US Attorney Loretta Lynch in New York.

The announcement by the FBI is part of efforts underway by President Obama’s Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force, created in November 2009 to wage an “aggressive, coordinated, and proactive effort to investigate and prosecute financial crimes”.

Over the past three fiscal years, the Justice Department has filed more than 10,000 financial fraud cases against nearly 15,000 defendants including more than 2,900 mortgage fraud defendants, the FBI said.