Call them the middlemen and you would not be wrong as the two Ghanaians are before a United States court, standing trial in federal court in Alexandria for romance fraud, reports wtop.com.
The report added that for their relatively minor roles played in the scam, these “money mules” never made contact with the victim themselves.
Instead, Linda and Richard helped receive and launder money totaling $42 million, and in return, they got proceeds of a 5% to 10% cut.
This, prosecutors said, is part of a scheme that targeted multiple victims and raked in more millions of dollars, with a chunk of those monies coming to its headquarters in Ghana.
But Jessica Aber, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, who is prosecuting the case of a 78-year-old man from Annandale, said that large numbers of romance scams go unreported because victims are embarrassed that they fell for such tales.
However, she was happy about this case as it allows for the laws to properly deal with the perpetrators of such crimes.
iFlirt, the Annandale man and the scam:
According to the report, a 78-year-old man from Annandale, who was seeking companionship, created an account on a social network called iFlirt.
There, he made contact with an interest person who identified herself as a widowed woman in her 30s.
With time, the scam started to emerge and the woman, who claimed to be from New York, begun to sell stories to the old man.
First, it was that she had been arrested while traveling to Germany to retrieve an inheritance of gold bars, and that she needed money to make bail.
A man seemingly in love, he sent in the money only to be bombarded with another message about another money request: she had been arrested a second time and needed even more money, the report added.
In the long run, the man only identified as the Annandale man, had sent out over $500,000 to this online romantic.
Apology and sentencing:
Linda Mbimadong and Richard Broni who were living in New York City as of the time of their arrest, have been reported to have shown remorse and apologized.
“I have to express my ugly truth. I was selfish, ambitious and greedy for success,” Mbimadong wrote.
The two pleaded guilty and were expected to be sentenced on Friday, February 18, 2022.
