An active-duty U.S. Army officer was arrested this week following an FBI investigation that exposed years of alleged support for a Cameroonian separatist militant group. Maj. Kenneth Chungag, 55, a military nurse most recently assigned to Fort Belvoir in Virginia, now faces federal conspiracy charges filed in the Eastern District of Virginia.

Chungag was arrested on Monday and made his initial court appearances this week. A co-defendant, Mercy Ombaku, a Maryland resident accused of serving as treasurer for the Ambazonian government in exile, was also arrested. The case was first reported by the Associated Press following the unsealing of court documents.

Chungag was born in Cameroon, immigrated to the United States, and became a naturalized citizen in 2003. He has served in the Army for more than two decades. His role as a medical officer gave him access to military installations, documentation, and communications channels that federal prosecutors allege he exploited.

According to the FBI affidavit, the alleged conspiracy began in 2020 when Chungag was stationed at Fort Meade in Maryland. He initiated contact with someone he believed was affiliated with the Ambazonia Defense Forces, the armed wing of the unrecognized Ambazonian separatist government in exile.

Chungag allegedly sent messages describing his military background and attaching a photograph of himself in uniform. He offered his expertise in military strategy to assist what he called “our present war.” In doing so, he reportedly misrepresented himself as a combat veteran of the Iraq War. His actual specialty is nursing.

He was subsequently added to an ADF group chat that tracked Cameroonian military movements in the country’s anglophone western regions. The chat included Benedict Kuah, who served at the time as head of the ADF. Court documents allege that Chungag used this channel to suggest the location for an IED attack and to share U.S. Army diagrams and instructional slides covering tactics and weapons maintenance.

The affidavit describes Chungag being elevated within the ADF’s command structure, eventually being designated “Chief of Defense Operations” on the group’s “War Council.” This was not a symbolic title. Court documents indicate he was an active participant in operational planning discussions.

In 2021, Chungag was allegedly connected through the network to Mercy Ombaku, who is accused of controlling funds for the Ambazonian government. Money transfers allegedly flowed through this connection, with later funds directed specifically toward purchasing Kalashnikov rifles for use by ADF fighters.

The alleged involvement in weapons procurement transforms the case from one of intelligence leakage into direct material support for an armed group responsible for thousands of deaths and the displacement of half a million civilians in western Cameroon.

The alleged conspiracy began to unravel after Chungag apparently grew disillusioned with ADF leadership. In May 2024, despite having pledged allegiance to the group only months earlier, he sent messages to the War Council expressing dissatisfaction and attempting to resign from his role.

Months later the FBI opened its investigation. When agents executed a search warrant, they found that Chungag had deleted a significant volume of messages. However, those same messages had already been captured on the phones of other participants in the group chat, providing investigators with a reconstructed record of the communications.

The deletion attempt is likely to feature prominently in any prosecution, as it speaks to consciousness of guilt. Federal prosecutors will also be able to point to the physical evidence of U.S. Army materials appearing in the possession of a foreign militant network.

Cameroon is a predominantly French-speaking nation in Central Africa, but its northwestern and southwestern regions are historically anglophone, a legacy of colonial-era borders that split the territory between British and French administration. Tensions over linguistic and political marginalization have simmered for decades.

In 2017, the unrecognized government of “Ambazonia” declared independence and established the Ambazonia Defense Forces to conduct armed operations against the Cameroonian state. Since that declaration, the conflict has killed more than 6,500 people and displaced over half a million civilians according to the International Crisis Group. No country has recognised Ambazonia as a sovereign state.

The ADF remains active as of 2026. The group targets both government security forces and civilian infrastructure in the anglophone regions. It is not designated as a terrorist organisation by the United States government, but the alleged conduct by Chungag falls under federal conspiracy statutes regardless of that designation.