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Bobby Boye: Convict, Advisor and Fraud16 September 2014. Updated 15 January 2021
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| No. | Activity | Estimated loss to Timor-Leste |
| 1 | Salary and consulting fees paid to Boye by the Norwegian government | $250,000 |
| 2 | Salary and consulting fees paid to Boye by the Timor-Leste government (some were paid while he was also being paid by Norway) | $500,000 |
| 3 | Wire transfers to Boye’s fraudulent company | $3,510,000 |
| 4 | Estimated amount Timor-Leste paid (to law firms DLA Piper, Arent Fox and others) for legal and other expenses to assess and control damage from the unfounded tax cases initiated by Boye | $10,000,000 |
| 5 | Interest and penalties on the portion of $440 million in tax assessments that companies paid under protest which the arbitration panel could order Timor-Leste to return (assumed to be $400 million for this estimate). This assumes the same rate of interest and penalties that Timor-Leste assessed the companies for underpayment, 1 percent per month, for three years. It could be more or less. We do not know the exact amount assessed, but a recent ConocoPhillips report to stock exchange regulators says: “ConocoPhillips served a Notice of Arbitration on the Timor-Leste Minister of Finance in October 2012 for outstanding disputes related to a series of tax assessments. As of March 31, 2015, ConocoPhillips has paid, under protest, tax assessments totaling approximately $237 million, which are primarily recorded in the “Investments and long-term receivables” line on our consolidated balance sheet. The arbitration hearing was conducted in Singapore in June 2014 under the United Nations Commission on International Trade Laws (UNCITRAL) arbitration rules, pursuant to the terms of the Tax Stability Agreement with the Timor-Leste government. Post-hearing briefs from both parties were filed in August 2014. We are now awaiting the Tribunal’s decision. Future impacts on our business are not known at this time.” ConocoPhillips owns 57% of the Bayu-Undan joint venture, so other partners’ assessments are about $179 million more. At Boye's suggestion, Timor-Leste also assessed back taxes from other companies, including $25 million paid under protest by Woodside in relation to a different project. | $172,310,000 |
| 6 | Minus interest Timor-Leste earned by investing $400 million in its Petroleum Fund from mid-2012 to mid-2015, during which the Petroleum Fund earned a cumulative nominal return of 16.4% | -$65,490,000 |
| 7 | Legal fees paid by oil companies to defend against excess assessments, which the arbitration panel may order Timor-Leste to reimburse | $15,000,000 |
| 8 | Additional penalties for negligence which the panel could assess against Timor-Leste (assumed at 10% of disallowed amount). This amount could be higher, or zero. Timor-Leste charged the companies a 100% penalty for underpayments it said were grossly negligent. | $40,000,000 |
| Estimated total | $176,080,000 |
The governments of Norway and Timor-Leste have more accurate information on items 1, 2 and 4. The arbitration panel's will decide items 5, 7 and 8, so a more precise figure will be available in the future. In addition to financial losses, Boye's conspiracy damaged the reputation and efficiency of Timor-Leste's leaders, led to violations of the Constitution and affected the nation's reputation among both investors and potential scammers.
On 16 July, Judge Wolfson ordered Boye to forfeit $4,233,015.42 to U.S. authorities, as well as three properties. Boye's cars and other items will be sold to help raise the money. The order, which was agreed to by prosecution and defense attorneys and Boye himself, resulted in a public notice which was published on 8 August. Anyone claiming interest in any of the property which Boye will forfeit has 60 days from then to petition the court.
Boye appeared before Judge Wolfson in Trenton Federal Court on 15 October 2015 and was sentenced (transcript) to a six-year prison term, followed by three years of supervised release. He was ordered to begin serving his prison time on 30 November, probably at the Fort Dix Federal Correctional Institution in New Jersey, a former U.S. Army base. Several New Jersey media reported on the sentencing (Mahwah man gets six-year sentence for defrauding tiny Asian Nation, $3.5M international con game nets NJ man 6 years in prison), although they added little to the prosecutor's press release. Boye was ordered to pay $3.51 million in restitution to the U.S. Treasury, which will distribute it to Timor-Leste's attorney Pierre-Richard Prosper of the Arent Fox law firm. The payment is due immediately, although a payment schedule may be worked out. The Court generously did not require Boye to pay interest (which could have been a million dollars or more) and ignored La'o Hamutuk's explanation that Boye's crimes cost Timor-Leste at least fifty times more than $3.5 million. La'o Hamutuk blogged on the sentence.
On 27 October, prosecutors published a Notice of Forfeiture listing the three properties which Boye will forfeit: 25 Crescent Hollow Court, Ramsey, NJ; 36 Rosewood Court, North Haledon, NJ; and 140 Grove Street, Elizabeth, NJ. Anyone else who claims these properties has two months to protest.
In early December, Attorney Zahid Quraishi notified the court that Boye owes the Crescent Hollow Condominium Association at least $166,861 in relation to 25 Crescent Hollow Court, mostly from damage when a frozen pipe broke and flooded nearby property in February 2015, while the house was empty. A settlement was accepted in June 2016, and the Association could receive about $70,000 in attorney's fees and uninsured damages from Boye's assets. Skip down for more on the forfeiture aspect of this case.
On 7-8 May 2015, Dili media published confused articles quoting the Prosecutor-General that his office was investigating two foreigners, "DG" (or TG) and "MF" (or FF) in relation to Boye's admission of guilt. We do not know if this refers to Tiago Guerra and Fong Fong. Despite public calls to investigate Timorese citizens, including public officials, who may have been part of Boye's conspiracy, the prosecutor only mentioned foreigners. Guerra had been arrested in October 2014 and was imprisoned until July 2015, without formal charges being filed. Guerra maintains his innocence and was not allowed to defend himself in court until 2017, but is still barred from leaving Timor-Leste. Like everyone else, he should be presumed innocent until proven guilty. (See above for more on the Guerra case.)
Boye appeals sentence, starts serving time, loses appeal
On 16 November 2015, Boye hired attorney Michael Confusione to represent him, terminating public defender K Anthony Thomas. Boye explained that Thomas had not responded to his wish to appeal the Final Judgment, and he needed time to raise funds to hire a private lawyer. Confusione requested a 30-day extension to the time limit for filing an appeal. On 18 November, Boye paid the court $505 in appeal fees.
The court was notified of Boye's appeal on 16 November and received arguments on 21 December about the requested extension of time to file, which was granted by Judge Wolfson on 12 January 2016.
On 25 November, Boye's new attorney filed a motion with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third District explaining that Boye intends to argue that his six-year sentence should be reduced to "as little as two months imprisonment, and possibly non-imprisonment," and asked the court to process their appeal quickly, as Boye had been ordered to report for prision 30 November. They claimed that the actual loss to Timor-Leste was much less than the $3.51 million fraud because Timor-Leste had received legal services in return for the money they paid, and that therefore a much shorter sentence was appropriate. Download key documents in this process with both sides' arguments.
The U.S. Attorney disagreed, explaining that Boye had "lied to his victim that those services would be provided by licensed attorneys and accountants." They also argued against reducing the sentence, urging that the appeal process be terminated because the plea bargain agreement had effectively waived Boye's right to appeal.
On 21 December, the Appellate Court Clerk ordered Boye to file the Appeal Brief by 21 January 2016, the prosecutors to respond within three weeks after that, and that any reply from Boye must come within two weeks after that response. On 12 January, the court verbally granted two weeks more, until 3 February, to file the Appeal Brief.
In early January, the District (lower) court scheduled "ancillary hearings" for 18 February 2016. The court later rescheduled them to 8 March, and again to 30 March at 10:00 AM in Trenton - Courtroom 5E.
On 21 January, Boye's attorney Michael Confusione and the Prosecutor filed opposing motions. Confusione argued against summary dismissal of the appeal, claiming that the long sentence was a "miscarriage of justice" because the District Court had calculated the loss to the victim incorrectly and Boye's previous legal counsel had been "ineffective" in not raising this issue. He promised to file a full Appellant's Brief and Appendix by 3 February. U.S. Attorneys Paul Fishman and Glenn Moramarco responded that Confusione's "assertion of a Guidelines calculation error is wholly unsupported by any argument, any case law, or any facts." They explained that Timor-Leste's Government had requested restitution of $5.48 million and that Boye said was too high, although he agreed to $3.51 million. Confusione rebutted the prosecutors' argument. La'o Hamutuk shared our analysis of the $176 million cost of Boye's scheme with the prosecutor handling the appeal.
On 25 January, Attorney Confusione filed a 95-page document with the Court of Appeals, including a 49-page argument about why Boye's sentence should be reduced, as well as the amount of restitution he should be required to repay Timor-Leste. The core of his case is that the value of the work Boye provided to Timor-Leste should be subtracted from the payments he fraudulently received. Confusione also filed a four-volume Appendix (more than 300 pages) of documents relating to Boye's work in Timor-Leste, as well as several documents relating to Boye's sentencing, but these have not been made public.
On 28 January, three Court of Appeals judges rejected Boye's appeal. They ruled that by signing the plea bargain he had waived his right to appeal and reaffirmed the six-year prison sentence imposed by the lower court. Their one-sentence order reads "The foregoing motion to enforce appellate waiver and for summary affirmance is granted." On 19 February, the Court of Appeals officially transmitted their decision to the District Court.
In late 2015, Boye began serving his 72-month prison sentence at Fort Dix Correctional Institution in New Jersey. If he behaves himself, he could have his sentence reduced by about 10 months for "good conduct time" and is scheduled to be released on 18 February 2021.
On 8 December 2015, the District Court cancelled Boye's "recognizance number", and on 17 December they ordered that his $500,000 cash bail be returned to a trust fund for his "marital federal tax obligations and for the support and maintenance of [Boye's] two minor children." It is therefore not available to be included in restitution to be paid to Timor-Leste. On 2 February 2016, the prosecutor informed the court that adequate public notice had been given to possible claimants against the property which Boye will forfeit.
On 18 April 2016, U.S. Attorney Peter W. Gaeta as added to the prosecution team.
On 15 June 2016, the U.S. Attorney's office submitted a proposed settlement to pay some of Boye's forfeited assets to the Crescent Hollow Condominium Association in connection with the house at 25 Crescent Hollow Court (see above). The stipulation, which was accepted by Judge Wolfson the following day, will award around $70,000 to the Association for uninsured damages, attorney's fees and back dues. This money will come from forfeited assets which would have been paid to Timor-Leste as restitution for losses from Boye's crimes.
On 25 April 2017 the U.S. Attorney's office named attorney Jafer Aftab to replace Peter Gaeta and Barbara Ward, and submitted a proposed order of forfeiture to the court.
On 4 May, attorney Anthony Velasquez, representing Public Tax Investments, claimed that PTI has a right to some of Boye's forfeited assets because PTI had purchased $30,000 of Boye's unpaid property tax debt for 140 Grove Street from the City of Elizabeth, New Jersey in June 2015. Velasquez notified the court that he intended to ask for a hearing on the forfeiture order, and attached a Memorandum of Law, Certification, proposed alternative order and proof of service. The court set a deadline for 5 June to decide on the forfeiture, but on 18 May this process was suspended after the U.S. attorney acknowledged that the tax lien will remain in effect, regardless of the forfeiture. On 7 August 2017, the U.S. attorney asked to correct the forfeiture order, removing this property from the forfeiture because it "has insufficient equity to justify forfeiture" -- in other words, is worth less than the unpaid tax debt, and on 13 August the judge took this property off the list of assets to be forfeited, and the official process was done in November.
On 13 June, the Court served the order of Forfeiture on the U.S. Marshalls Service.
On 26 June, attorney Robert del Vecchio, representing US Bank as custodian for "BV Trust 2015-1", filed a request for a hearing because BV Trust 2015-1 had purchased $51,000 of Boye's property tax debt for 36 Rosewood Court from the Borough of North Haledon. They asked that this debt, with interest, be paid to them when the U.S. government sells property confiscated from Boye. As of 22 June, the amount had increased to $108,744.
In October 2017, following several proposals, stipulations and public notifications, the court finalized the forfeiture of houses owned by Boye at 36 Rosewood Court, North Haledon and 25 Crescent Hollow Court, Ramsey New Jersey.
Boye's trials concluded around the same time as the disputes over the tax assessments he instigated against ConocoPhillips and other oil companies were resolved. The companies were dissatisfied with 2013 rulings by courts in Timor-Leste, and appealed to arbitration in Singapore. Timor-Leste refunded $25 million to Woodside in February 2015, but most cases remained unresolved until Timor-Leste and ConocoPhillips jointly announced the settlement of "several significant tax disputes" in February 2016, and the arbitration panel ruled on the remaining dispute the following month. Timor-Leste began refunding over-collected taxes by deducting them from Bayu-Undan's monthly royalty and tax payments, which continued through February 2017. La'o Hamutuk understands that the total amount returned to ConocoPhillips is around $200 million, with tens of millions more going to other oil companies. Refunded taxes totaled around $219 million in 2016 and about $40 million in 2017.
Another page on this website has more about the tax cases.
La'o Hamutuk has compiled key documents relating to Boye's prosecution, plea bargain and sentence, and another packet regarding the appeal. We will continue to update them as the case proceeds.
Boye files civil lawsuit to overturn his sentence, loses two years later, and appeals. Released after five years in prison.
On 28 September 2016, Bobby Boye and his attorney Michael Confusione filed a lawsuit asking the U.S. Federal Court to "vacate his sentence on the ground that defendant received ineffective assistance of counsel in violation of his rights under the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution, and schedule a new sentencing hearing." The motion was accompanied by a 158-page Memorandum of Law and 1,200 pages, including 23 Exhibits (39 MB compilation). The documents reveal more about Boye's work for Timor-Leste (including bids, bid evaluations and contracts), his emails with Timorese officials and attorney Pierre Prosper, and his trial and sentencing than was previously available to the public.
The motion argues that Boye performed useful work under the contracts that Timor-Leste awarded to his nonexistent company Opus and Best, so that the total losses suffered by Timor-Leste are less than the $3.51 million paid for those contracts. Since the length of his sentence and the amount of restitution he was must repay to Timor-Leste are based on the $3.51 million figure, Boye wants this number re-calculated and the sentence reduced based on a lower amount of losses. Boye claims that he asked his defense attorney, taxpayer-paid Assistant Federal Public Defender K. Anthony Thomas, to raise this issue during his trial and sentencing, but that Thomas did not do so effectively. As described in the motion: "Counsel [Anthony Thomas] failed to cite and argue federal law governing calculation of the "loss" caused by defendant's conspiracy crime, failed to produce evidence regarding the "loss" before the sentencing court, and counseled defendant to accept a plea that “stipulated” a loss figure that was contrary to governing federal law and the actual facts of this case. Counsel failed to submit to the District Court the work products that defendant provided to Timor-Leste (the alleged victim) in exchange for the payments received under the three contracts with Timor-Leste. ..."
As discussed above, La'o Hamutuk estimates that Timor-Leste suffered financial, political and reputational damage from Boye's crimes totalling more than $100 million, although U.S. courts have yet not considered the total costs.
On 3 November, Judge Wolfson rejected the prosecutor's request for summary dismissal of Boye's motion to overturn his sentence. She directed the prosecutors to answer the motion within 45 days, and gave Boye's attorney 30 days after that to reply.
On 7 December, the prosecutor asked for additional time, and Judge Wolfson accepted the request the next day. The new schedule is for the prosecutor to respond to Boye's motion by 17 March 2017, with Boye's attorney to reply by 20 April. On 1 March, Boye filed a supplemental certification to support his petition to vacate the sentence. This 18-page document describes his hiring by Norway and later by the Ministry of Finance, the value of the work he performed while at the Ministry of Finance, and the incompetence of his trial attorney. On 7 March, the prosecutor asked for more time to respond to these new allegations, and on 15 March Judge Wolfson extended the time.
On 6 April, the prosecutor filed a 141-page response to Boye's lawsuit, including more than 80 pages of court transcripts from the 2015 plea and sentencing hearings of Boye's original trial. Boye and his attorney filed a 45-page response on 12 May, arguing that "the monumental errors [Boye's trial Attorney Thomas] committed" made it "inconceivable and shocking" for the government to argue that Boye was effectively represented at his trial.
On 12 May 2017, Boye filed a 36-page response (with 10 more pages of documents) to the U.S. attorney's argument that his sentence should not be vacated.
Nearly a year later, the Judge had not issued a decision on the case. Boye's attorney wrote to the court on 21 March 2018, pointing out that Boye is "nearing the halfway point of his prison sentence" and asking the Court to rule on his petition to reduce the sentence "as soon as possible." He wrote a similar letter on 2 August saying "While waiting for the Court’s decision on his Petition, defendant has served more than one-half his sentence of imprisonment. Defendant’s 2255 Petition is close to being rendered moot", but there had been no decision by late September.
On 20 November 2018, the Court rejected Boye's petition in total, issuing a 15-page Opinion and an Order that his sentence not be vacated.
Boye's attorney appealed the rejection of the petition on vacating the sentence on 5 December, and Judge Wolfson responded that it is not appealable. Nevertheless, despite some procedural issues, Boye applied for a Certificate of Appealability on 31 December. The Third Circuit Court of Appeals has consolidated 1,300 pages of documents and exhibits relating to the case.
On 11 January 2019, Attorney Confusione filed a notice of appearance, and on 4 April the judges granted a Certificate of Appealability and issued a Briefing Notice, allowing the appeal to proceed. On 10 May, the judges granted Boye a two-week extension, and his attorney filed his appeal brief on 24 May 2019. The U.S. Attorney responded on 22 August, and Boye replied on 12 September. The three-judge panel announced that it would discuss the case on 22 November, but there was no oral argument and the notes are not public.
Five months later, on 22 April 2020, Judges Michael Chagares, Paul Matey and Julio Fuentes of the U.S. Third Circuit filed their non-precedential opinion and judgment. They reaffirmed the lower court ruling rejecting Boye's lawsuit, so his sentence is still in effect. They concluded that "Boye cannot show that his attorney's allegedly deficient performance prejudiced him", and pointed out that "In no scenario would Boye's loss amount be zero, as he contends, and he has failed to set forth the purported off-set amount to show that his sentence would have been materially impacted, or that he would have been on stronger plea bargaining grounds. Additionally, any potential lower offense level could easily be negated by other benefits that Boye received in the agreed upon plea deal." On 16 June, the Court of Appeals informed the District Court of the opinion and judgment.
After serving his sentence, Boye was released from Fort Dix Federal Correctional Institution in New Jersey on 7 January 2021, after more than five years behind bars.
See below for more documents and media reports.
Much of the following section (with blue background) comes from an article by Carl Alfred Dahl published on 23 August 2014 in Aftenposten in Norwegian, and a shorter version two days later in English. Some photos and links are from Aftenposten, although La'o Hamutuk has added more. Information added by La'o Hamutuk has a white background. Click on most graphics to see them larger.
| Norwegian Ministry of Finance sends fraudster to help Timor-Leste Adapted from an article by Carl Alfred Dahl, Aftenposten, 23 August 2014 Norway hired the Nigerian-American fraudster Bobby Boye to help Timor-Leste, one of the world’s poorest countries. Now, the man is charged with having robbed the country’s people of 3.51 million U.S. dollars.
The very diplomatic statement comes from Pierre-Richard Prosper (left), an American lawyer who spoke to Aftenposten on behalf of Timor-Leste government. |  Bobby Boye went straight from being incarcerated for fraud in the United States to an interview with the Norwegian Ministry of Finance. There he got a job as an advisor to help Timor-Leste manage the oil money. | |
| The country became independent in 2002, after having been occupied by Indonesia since 1975. Every third Timorese lives in what the World Bank defines as extreme poverty. But the economy is growing rapidly as a result of oil and gas discoveries on the seabed. This is where Norway comes in. The Oil for Development project is considered a flagship in Norwegian development cooperation. Timor-Leste is often mentioned as one of the project’s greatest successes. The goal is to help countries that sit on huge oil and gas resources to make the resources into a blessing rather than a curse. As part of the project, Norway was to finance up to ten advisors starting in 2008, with gradual reduction until 2013. In 2009 Bobby Boye reported for duty. He was sent by Norway to the capital Dili to make the poor Timorese people a little less poor. But Boye also enriched himself during his stay, according to the FBI, United States federal law enforcement. |  Crown Prince Haakon Magnus met with Timor-Leste’s Finance Minister Emilia Pires in Oslo in December 2011. At the time, Bobby Boye was working in the Oil for Development project in Pires’ Ministry, with salary from Norway. PHOTO: Larsen, Hakon Mosvold | |
The FBI arrested Bobby Boye at Newark International Airport outside New York on 19 June 2014. The 51-year-old is charged with stealing $3.51 million from Timor-Leste, almost as much as Timor-Leste spends on health in a month. Boye denies the charges. Aftenposten can reveal that Bobby Boye has a long career at odds with the law. How could he then become an employee of Norway's Ministry of Finance? | ||
| Among princes and saints Bobby Boye was born in Nigeria in 1963. Bobby has alternated between using surnames Boye and Ajiboye. One of Boye's resumes says his lawyer training and practicing certificate was from Nigeria in 1987. In his CV, Boye mentions membership in the Lincoln’s Inn lawyers' society in London and a Bachelor’s degree in law from the prestigious St. John’s College, University of Cambridge. “I cannot find any record of a Bobby Boye or Bobby Ajiboye who has studied at St. John’s College, Cambridge,” the campus librarian, Fiona Colbert, e-mailed to Aftenposten. We got the same response from Lincoln’s Inn. Two universities in California, however, confirm that Boye attended law school with them in the late 1990s. |  St. John’s list of alumni includes nine Nobel Prize winners, six Prime Ministers, three archbishops, three Catholic saints and Prince William ... but no Bobby Boye. | |
| Critically ill In 1998 Boye gets a job at Morgan Stanley subsidiary Dean Witter in Woodland Hills, California. There, he allegedly succumbed to the temptation to enrich himself at customer and employer expense. According to a ruling by the disciplinary committee for the New York Stock Exchange, Boye embezzled shares and cash worth about $90,000 from two of its customers, forging signatures and trading without their authorization. Then he is allegedly struck by a life-threatening illness. But Bobby Boye does not let the disease stop his career. Just days after he begins medical leave paid by Morgan Stanley, he takes a job with auditing giant KPMG in San Francisco, according to his own CV. For the next six months, Boye enjoys sick pay from one place and salary from another. When his boss at Morgan Stanley discovers this, Boye is fired. In July 2004, Boye was censured and permanently barred from the New York Stock Exchange and its member companies. Got tax refund In 2002 Boye was hired by 3D Systems, pioneers in the development of 3-D printers, in Valencia, California. Boye heads up the tax department and often causes 3D Systems to overpay taxes to Canada. When Canada reimburses the tax, Boye ensures that it ends up in his private account. In this way, he stole at least $250,000 from his employer. | ||
| Although 3D Systems was paying him more than $100,000 per year in salary, Bobby Boye applied for personal bankruptcy in September 2004. Boye didn't mention his account where the diverted Canadian tax refunds were waiting, and the Bankruptcy Court didn't discover it. When the Court approved his application in January 2005, they allowed Boye to cancel approximately $100,000 in debts, but let him keep his ten-year-old BMW 318 and Jaguar XJS luxury cars. | ||
Boye emptied the fat account on the day he left the company, in mid-2005. However, the 3D Systems scam caught up with him. California authorities arrested Boye in October 2006, and he faced charges in court in Los Angeles.Bobby Boye lays his cards on the table. He admits to having stolen at least $150,000 and laundered at least $35,000. At the same time, Boye admits falsifying an application for an identity card in 1996 and an application for a driver’s license in 2002. He has operated with at least two different identities and social security numbers. Police require Boye to submit to three DNA tests and finger and palm prints to confirm this. Boye is sentenced to three years in prison (served in a restitution center), three years on probation, and ordered to repay $262,128 to 3D Systems. He also had to pay $125,252 to the firm that uncovered the fraud. The method and the amounts were confirmed by Maryellen Sebold, who performed the audit. |  In 2006, Bobby O. Ajiboye was arrested; he was brought to trial the following year. There, he pled guilty to theft, money laundering and forgery. Police presented evidence that linked the two identities Bobby Boye and Bobby Ajiboye together. | |
| Hired by Norway Boye had probably finished his sentence by the beginning of 2009. Later that year, he sought a job at the Royal Finance Ministry in Oslo. Six people applied, but only Boye was called for an interview. The Norwegian Ministry of Finance staff interviewed him in New York and Oslo. Ministry of Finance staff also interviewed four of his references. One of the references was associated with a law firm in London which had gone bankrupt in 2003. Reference number two was with KPMG, where Boye worked while he was receiving sick pay from Morgan Stanley. In addition, Boye named references from two different positions working for Nigerian government agencies. The last time he claimed to have worked for Nigeria overlaps with the prison sentence to which he was sentenced in 2007. In his CV, Boye also mentioned 3D Systems, the company he was convicted in 2007 of having defrauded. The Ministry of Finance did not check this reference. Boye made it, according to a letter from the Ministry: “With reference to your application dated 1 December 2009, the Norwegian Ministry of Finance has the pleasure to offer you a position as petroleum tax advisor in the Oil for Development program in Timor-Leste.” According to the work contracts, Bobby Boye earned over $340,000 of Norwegian taxpayers’ money in salary, per diem and allowances to cover hardships related to the overseas assignment. | ||
 (See below for his additional salary from Timor-Leste and for Norway's explanation of how he was hired.)As shown on the New York State Unified Court System website (right), Boye was first admitted to practice law in New York State in 2010, after Norway had hired him to come to Timor-Leste. He is not listed as a lawyer in California, New Jersey or Connecticut, the other states where he has lived. La'o Hamutuk met him in Dili in July 2010; he probably arrived a few months earlier. | ||
Early in 2012, Timor-Leste formally took over as the employer responsible for Boye, but it was planned for Norway to pay 60 percent of his salary until the end of the year. "Norway had previously provided advisors who worked well. When Timor-Leste needed a legal advisor, Norway took on the task of identifying and recruiting him and introduced him to Timorese authorities," Pierre-Richard Prosper, Timor-Leste’s spokesman, told Aftenposten. Working for Timor-Leste ... and himself | ||
| In Dili, Boye approached his task of improving tax collection from oil companies with gusto. He identified gaps which he said the companies had exploited, changed external auditors of the companies' tax returns, and obliged the companies to keep records in Dili as well as Australia. His activity and apparent results earned the trust of many of his Timorese, Norwegian and international supervisors and colleagues. For specifics, see La'o Hamutuk's page on Making the Oil Companies Pay What they Owe, the web page which prompted ConocoPhillips to look into Boye's history in 2010. Together with the Timor-Leste government, Boye organized a series of audits and assessments which he said could bring in billions of dollars of additional revenue. ConocoPhillips and the other companies protested strongly, but paid more than $300 million in back tax levies in 2011 and 2012 in order to avoid escalating penalty and interest charges. At the same time, they appealed the assessments. Dili courts have supported some company appeals, but most are pending decision by arbitration panel in Singapore later this year. In a submission to the Australian Parliament in April 2013, ConocoPhillips lamented: "ConocoPhillips and the other Bayu-Undan joint venture partners have recently received multiple tax assessments that breach the fiscal framework committed to by Timor-Leste... [and] represent a change in the interpretation and application of Timor-Leste tax laws. ... Repeated attempts over several years to resolve these matters through direct negotiation with the Timor-Leste government have been unsuccessful and, consequently, the joint venture partners are now seeking recourse both in the Timor-Leste District Court and through international arbitration." Boye advised Timor-Leste authorities that their tax regulations were unclear and contained loopholes, and should be revised. They accepted his advice and asked him to prepare new versions, but he said that this was a big task and he was too busy, so it should be contracted out. Therefore, in February and March 2012 the Ministry of Finance requested bids from international law firms in support of Petroleum Tax Audit and for writing petroleum tax regulations, both listing Bobby Boye as the contact "for further information or clarification." The invitations to bid asked for, among other things: "A corporate profile including the date they were established, ... similar assignments they have performed over the past five years indicating ... contact details for client staff who could be asked to provide references, ... CVs of key staff likely to be available for the assignment indicating their skills and qualifications ... Statement declaring whether they are in any potential conflict of interest situation."
According to Timor-Leste's Procurement Transparency Portal, the Ministry of Finance awarded $7.8 million worth of contracts to Opus & Best during 2012 (left). Timor-Leste paid Opus & Best about $3.5 million under these contracts (page at right from the FBI Complaint). | ||
Bobby Boye defrauded the poor young country in Southeast Asia. The monetary trail goes from Timor-Leste’s treasury, to a law firm named Opus & Best, and further to extravagant consumption for the benefit of Bobby Boye.
Opus & Best boasts of 30 years experience in international tax law, a staff of lawyers, economists and auditors, and offices at 100 Park Avenue, midtown Manhattan (left). In reality, both the website and the company were recently established, with only one employee (Boye himself) and a business address in an apartment in Queens, New York (right). Boye never tells Timor-Leste that he is affiliated with the company to which he himself awarded contracts worth millions. The firm claims that there are no conflicts of interest in the assignments. In reality, there are close links between Bobby Boye and the law firm, according to both Aftenposten and FBI source material. | ||
 Opus & Best incorporated itself as a business on 30 March 2012 (right), after they bid for the contract in Timor-Leste and only a few weeks before Timor-Leste's Ministry of Finance awarded them a $2.4 million contract to develop new tax regulations.In addition to his salary from Norway, Timor-Leste paid Bobby Boye $250,000 from the Contingency Fund during 2011. Since Boye was also being paid by the Norwegian assistance program, La'o Hamutuk asked him and Norway about this in November 2012, and Boye replied (abridged from two emails): It's not surprising that Boye worked long hours. In addition to his advisor job, he had to do the work of an entire fictitious New York law firm. In 2014, a Ministry advisor informed La'o Hamutuk that the Ministry and Norway shared responsibility for Boye's salary, and that Norway may have reimbursed Timor-Leste for some of it in 2011. Beginning in 2012, Boye frequently left Timor-Leste for Singapore and New York, ostensibly for medical reasons, and he didn't return after mid-2013. | ||
The luxury cars The FBI thinks it is sitting on a data trail that links Boye to the law firm’s e-mail and bank account. In addition, the Opus & Best law firm used Boye’s home address on several real estate purchases. The millions were moving fast. After he joined the Ministry of Finance, Boye and the law firm purchased the following:
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 Bobby Boye bought a silver 2012 model Bentley Continental, worth $172,000, with four-wheel drive and a 6-liter flex-fuel engine, similar to the picture. FOTO: Denis Balibouse |
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| Arrested at the airport In March or April 2013, Bobby Boye packed his bags and left Timor-Leste, after a failed attempt to acquire even more money, according to the FBI. Authorities from Timor-Leste, the United States and Norway begin to investigate what happened. Boye is arrested by the FBI on 19 June 2014, when he arrives at Newark International Airport after an overseas trip. The FBI takes custody of four properties belonging to the firm Opus & Best. The properties are owned by the firm, but are closely associated with Boye:
“Timor-Leste was not aware of the scam it was exposed to until after Boye left the country. As you probably understand, the authorities were surprised when they became familiar with his background,” says Prosper. Aftenposten has not been able to find out what Bobby Boye was involved in the time after he left Timor-Leste, and until his arrest. | ||
 La'o Hamutuk did a Google search in September 2014 which turned up the business card at left (click it for context), so Bobby may be reinventing himself once again. Needless to say, the leading D.C. law firm Arnold & Porter has no Bobby Ajiboye among the 465 professionals in its Washington office. | ||
In Southeast Asia, 1.1 million Timorese people are slightly poorer than they should be, if the FBI’s assertions about the man Norway sent to help them are true. Denies guiltBobby Boye’s attorney, Joseph P. Rem Jr. of the Rem Law Group, confirmed to Aftenposten that Boye had been in prison for theft and money laundering in connection with the 3D Systems scam. How does Bobby Boye respond to the accusations from the FBI? Is it possible to contact Boye directly? Deputy District Attorney Shirley U. Emehelu in New Jersey, told Aftenposten that the date of Bobby Boye’s trial has been postponed several times, most recently on 12 August. According to court documents, there have been talks about a possible settlement, and the ongoing legal process is described above. Boye is under house arrest in his villa. The plot is almost four thousand square metres, and there is a large swimming pool in the garden. Dependent on assistanceTo a large extent thanks to Norway’s efforts, Timor-Leste’s petroleum fund is growing steadily. From April to June 2014, $850 million in fresh oil money poured in. As of June 30, the fund was worth over $16 billion. It is supposed to guarantee the small and poor country a steady growth and better living conditions for future generations. "Timor-Leste is an entirely new country, which started from scratch in 2002. The population really depends heavily on the international community. The authorities have now realized that they must play a greater role in the vetting of the advisors that other nations and organizations present to them. They must also learn to ask the right questions," says government spokesman, Pierre-Richard Prosper. Norway: It is of course regrettableThe Finance Ministry’s communications department refused to meet Aftenposten for an interview, despite the fact that the newspaper and the Ministry are across the street from each other. The Ministry requires questions and answers on e-mail. Responses are signed by deputy department director Håkon Tandstad and sent by Communication Manager Runar Malkenes. Tandstad signed the contracts with Boye.
How could it happen that a convicted fraudster gets a job in Finance?
How was the position advertised?
How many applied? What did the application and CV say?
Who checked the CV, and how was this done?
Did not check defrauded reference In the CV Boye also listed 3D Systems, the company he was convicted in 2007 of having defrauded. The Ministry of Finance did not check this reference. The four references that were interviewed were associated with a law firm in London (which filed for bankruptcy in 2003), the audit firm KPMG, and two offices of the Nigerian government. The last time he said he had worked with Nigeria overlaps with his 2007 prison sentence.
How was Boye interviewed?
When and how did the Ministry become aware of Boye’s history?
Norway’s Ministry of Finance had decided, before this case came up, that it shall not recruit for, or act as employer in, aid programs of this sort. Sources for Aftenposten article: Conviction and petitions from Los Angeles Superior Court, minutes of a hearing of the Disciplinary Board of the New York Stock Exchange, documents from property registries and courts in New York and New Jersey, documents from Ministries of Finance in Norway and Timor-Leste. | ||
Additional sources used by La'o Hamutuk: U.S. Bankruptcy Court and U.S. District Court of New Jersey dockets on PACER, FINRA report, Norwegian Foreign Ministry website, interviews with RDTL Ministry of Finance and other staff and advisors, TL Procurement Portal, RDTL Ministry of Finance website (documents downloaded and saved in 2012).
On 9 September 2014, an article by Tom Allard in the Sydney Morning Herald reported that ConocoPhillips knew about Boye's record long before Timor-Leste's government learned of it. The company's interest was piqued in 2010 by the 'uncanny accuracy' of La'o Hamutuk's web page on back petroleum taxes, and their background research on Boye revealed some of his shameful history. (Although La'o Hamutuk did talk with Boye occasionally during that time, we received information from many other public, official and unofficial sources.) After Boye was arrested, people close to Timor-Leste's petroleum tax system told us that they had concerns about Boye and Opus & Best years ago, but that his trust by high officials prevented them from being acted upon. Indeed, some of the above history can be found on the internet in a few minutes.
On 10 September, the SMH published another article by Allard describing Timor-Leste's allegations about Roger Maguire, an Australian advisor to the tax department in Timor-Leste's Ministry of Finance in 2010-2011. After Maguire left Timor-Leste, ConocoPhillips paid him $120,000 to help develop the company's evidence in the tax arbitration cases. Timor-Leste's attorney Pierre Prosper alleged that Maguire had been a "mole" for the company while he was ostensibly working for Timor-Leste.
We will continue to update this page as more information becomes available (see above for the current status).
Media coverage (most recent first)
Third Circuit Won't Cut Jail Time of Ex-Atty Claiming Bad Counsel, Law360, 22 April 2020
Mahwah man gets six-year sentence for defrauding tiny Asian Nation (North Jersey.com)
$3.5M international con game nets NJ man 6 years in prison (NJ.com), 15 October 2015
Bergen County, New Jersey, Man Sentenced To Six Years In Prison For Defrauding Foreign Nation Of More Than $3.5 Million, US Attorney press release, 15 October 2015
Mahwah man fleeced tiny developing nation of $3.5M, North Jersey.com, 2 May 2015
Attorney Admits to Scamming Foreign Nation Using Sham Firm, Law360, 28 April 2015
$3.5M scheme bankrolled N.J. lawyer's luxury car buying spree, feds say, NJ.com, 28 April 2015
Authorities: Bergen County Man Pleads Guilty to Defrauding Foreign Country Out Of $3.5 million, Bergen County Patch, 28 April 2015
Bergen County Man Admits Defrauding Foreign Nation of More Than $3.5 Million, US Attorney press release, 28 April 2015
Norway's Link to Graft Claim, Upstream Online, 12 September 2014
East Timor accuses Australian tax assessor Roger Maguire of being a "mole" for oil companies. Sydney Morning Herald, 10 September 2014
Big Oil stands by as con man swindles East Timor. Sydney Morning Herald, 9 September 2014
Timor-Leste thinks Norway should take responsibility for alleged fraud. Aftenposten, 25 August 2014 (also Norwegian: Øst-Timor mener Norge må ta ansvar for påstått svindel)
Convicted embezzler, money launderer hired by Norway's government. Aftenposten, 25 August 2014 (also PDF)
Finansdepartementet sendte svindler for å hjelpe Øst-Timor. (Finance Department sends swindler to help Timor-Leste). Aftenposten, 23 August 2014
Conoco Phillips Appreciates Dili District Court's Independence on Tax Cases. Independente/ETLJB, 30 June 2014
Timor-Leste has been robbed! or Nauk ona Timor-Leste (Tetum). La'o Hamutuk blog, 23 June 2014 (updated through August)
The information on this blog was picked up by media in Dili and around the world.
Feds allege Bergen County man defrauded foreign country, bought property, luxury cars. Newark Star-Ledger, 19 June 2014
Bergen County Man Arrested for Defrauding Foreign Nation of More Than $3.5 Million, FBI press release, 19 June 2014
U.S. Third Circuit appellate court opinion upholding the rejection of sentence reduction, 22 April 2020
Judge's opinion rejecting the sentence reduction lawsuit, 20 November 2018
Boye's certification to support his lawsuit to reduce his sentence, 8 May 2017
Boye's brief to the Court of Appeals asking to reduce his sentence, 25 January 2016
Materials relating to the appeal of Boye's sentence, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, November 2015-January 2016
Materials relating to Boye federal criminal case, U.S. District Court of New Jersey, June 2014-January 2016
Sentencing minutes, transcript and detailed judgment, October 2015
Judge's forfeiture order in U.S. District Court, July 2015
Corrected version, October 2015
Prosecutors' information, Plea Agreement and Application for Guilty Plea in U.S. District Court, April 2015
La'o Hamutuk letter to U.S. and Timor-Leste prosecutors, 21 July 2014
Criminal Complaint filed by FBI in U.S. District Court, 18 June 2014
Offering to sell Boye's home for $2.7 million, October 2013 [since taken off the market and serving as his jail]
List of contracts Timor-Leste awarded to Opus & Best, TL Transparency Portal, April-November 2012
Intent to Award contract for revising tax regulations to O&B, Ministry of Finance, May 2012
Draft regulations circulated for comment, Ministry of Finance, February 2013
Request for Proposals, Tax-Audit Consulting Services, Ministry of Finance, March 2012
Request for Proposals, Income Tax and APT Regulations Consulting Services, Ministry of Finance, March 2012
Programme Agreement between Norway and TL concerning Assistance in Management of Petroleum Resources, June 2008
Materials relating to Ajiboye bankruptcy, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, September 2004 - January 2005
NY Stock Exchange Hearing Panel decision 04-8 revoking Boye's stock broker license, January 2004
FINRA BrokerCheck report accessed July 2014
The Timor-Leste Institute for Development Monitoring and Analysis (La’o Hamutuk) |
On 12 March 2015, 
