Citizen of Congo Sentenced to Federal Prison For Involvement in Scheme to Defraud the United States

A man who came to the United States in 2022 on a student visa and claimed asylum was sentenced on April 10, 2026, for his involvement in a conspiracy to defraud the government.

Medard Lotahe Elonge, age 40, from the Democratic Republic of the Congo and living in Sioux City, Iowa, received the prison term after a September 8, 2025, guilty plea to conspiracy to defraud the United States.

In January 2022, Elonge entered the United States on a student visa and later applied for asylum. The mother of his children, who was in the Congo, then participated in a sham or fraudulent marriage in order to come to the United States. Elonge and his co-conspirators helped arrange the fraudulent marriage and filed a fraudulent petition to bring the family to the United States. In a plea agreement, Elonge admitted to having another man marry his wife. Their plan was for the other man to divorce Elonge's wife six months after Elonge's family arrived in the United States.

Elonge was sentenced in Cedar Rapids by United States District Court Chief Judge C.J. Williams. Elonge was sentenced to 12 months' and one day imprisonment. He must also serve a three-year term of supervised release after the prison term. There is no parole in the federal system.

Elonge was released on the bond previously set and is to surrender to the United States Marshal on May 4, 2026. Joseph Onolenga Okamba and Bienvenu Saido Binyangi, who were charged in the same indictment and have also pled guilty, have yet to be sentenced. Joseph Okoko, who was also charged in the same indictment, was previously sentenced to three months' imprisonment.

The case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys Matthew J. Cole and Nicole L. Nagin and was investigated by the Department of State's Diplomatic Security Service, the United States Postal Inspection Service, United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Waterloo Police Department, the Sioux City Police Department, and the Iowa Department of Transportation.

This case is part of Operation Take Back America a nationwide initiative that marshals the full resources of the Department of Justice to repel the invasion of illegal immigration, achieve the total elimination of cartels and transnational criminal organizations (TCOs), and protect our communities from the perpetrators of violent crime.

Court file information at https://ecf.iand.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/login.plLinks to other government and non-government sites will typically appear with the "external link" icon to indicate that you are leaving the Department of Justice website when you click the link..

The case file number is 24-CR-2052.

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