Goergia.- A Georgia man is accused of defrauding a Virginia woman with more than $6.5 million after luring her into a romantic relationship through an online dating site. Nnamdi Marcellus MgBodile, 35, from Marietta, Georgia, was charged with 20 counts of bank fraud, money laundering and conspiracy to commit bank fraud, according to a press release from the Department of Justice on Wednesday. MgBodile and others also allegedly tried to defraud a company with $350,000 using an email scheme, according to the Department of Justice.
Online romance scams and business email engagement scams have increasingly become the method of choice for transnational scammers targeting U.S. residents and companies, federal prosecutor Byung said Pak.
“In this case, a single victim allegedly lost millions.” This is a clear reminder that users of online dating websites should be aware of such scams and act with extreme caution if someone online or over the phone asks them for money,” Pak added.In November 2017, Virginia’s woman , who had a considerable trust fund, allegedly met MgBodile on an online dating site, except that he posed as a man named Jimmy Deere, according to the indictment. Deere and the woman apparently exchanged emails over the course of the next month.
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Deere told her that he was excited to start a life with her, but that he first needed to solve an investment opportunity, according to the indictment. He told her that he was a hedge fund manager and that he had a big commission on the way, but he needed her to act as his “partner representative” and deposit the money into his account to avoid a conflict of interest, prosecutors said. By January and February 2018, Deere and his henchmen began asking her to pay “fees” and taxes “so that their funds could be released.
