A disgraced former soccer player will serve 27 months in prison for defrauding friends, family and other investors who believed they were financing youth sports ventures in Africa.

Adrian Kawuba, 34, of Watertown, pleaded guilty to wire fraud related to fraudulently selling “lucrative investments” in youth sports teams in Africa in December 2023, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Massachusetts announced. The elaborate Ponzi scheme, the feds said, involved at least 26 fraudulent deals and $2.2 million of funds transferred, $625,000 or more of which Kawuba kept.

Kawuba was sentenced by U.S. Senior District Court Judge William Young to 27 months in prison and three years of supervised release. The judge also order the defendant to pay restitution of more than $625,000, forfeiture of more than $2.2 million and a special assessment of $400.

“Kawuba got money from investors, spent it, and then got new money from new investors to pay the earlier investors, and around and around the scheme went until it collapsed,” the prosecution writes. “The defendant told his victims that their money would go to ‘short-term capital needs of youth sports businesses’ or to ‘financing solutions to soccer clubs for their transfer market transactions and deals’ or to ‘private sports financing deals.’”

Many of the investors, the prosecution’s sentencing memorandum wrote, were sold on “Kawuba’s personal magnetism and apparent good faith,” and the defendant used his good image to “prey on” his personal friends and contacts.

“Kawuba’s crime was not just a fraud,” the prosecution wrote. “It was, as one victim has put it, a ‘betrayal’ that shook the victim’s whole life.”

Kawuba, a former soccer player orignially from Uganda, did not invest any of his victim’s funds, instead using the money to pay for luxury goods for himself and to pay “returns” to other investors.

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“With the benefit of family, community, education, and economic opportunity, he still chose to steal, and for victims, he chose his friends and people in his community,” the prosecution wrote.

In a letter to the judge, Kawuba acknowledge the harm he caused during a “dark period” of his life when his career as a pro soccer player failed to take off.

“In my desperation to feel worthy and avoid disappointment, I made choices that I knew were wrong but felt compelled to justify in the moment,” Kawuba wrote. “The fear of getting in trouble after realizing I was dealing with extremely powerful people and the desire to belong in the circles I had been introduced to clouded my judgment, leading me down a path of deceit and dishonesty. I want to be unequivocally clear: there is no excuse or defense for my actions.”