Nigerian man sentenced to six years in prison in crypto romance scheme with Colorado widow
A Nigerian national living in Minnesota has been sentenced to nearly six years in prison and ordered to pay nearly million in restitution for defrauding a widowed Colorado woman through an elaborate cryptocurrency romance scam federal leadership communicated Tuesday The -year-old man Adetomiwa Seun Akindele will be deported to Nigeria once he serves his sentence according to the United States Attorney s Office for the District of Colorado Akindele pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud and one count of money laundering in a scam in which officers explained he posed as a wealthy Italian-American businessman named Frank Labato on a dating website in Akindele and the woman began exchanging emails and phone calls during which Akindele provided the victim with additional false details about his personal and work background images and photos to substantiate his fictitious persona of Frank ' Related Articles Don t scan QR codes on unsolicited packages delivered to your house FBI warns Denver pastor wife indicted in million cryptocurrency scam Those conversations led to Akindele telling the woman she needed to open a cryptocurrency exchange account to help him out of a financial bind leadership revealed At his direction she wired him nearly million which Akindele converted into various cryptocurrencies laundered it across multiple crypto exchanges and then converted it back to U S dollars before depositing the money into his own bank accounts Akindele according to federal leadership fraudulently assured the woman he would repay her for what were characterized as loans to his business even executing three fake promissory notes to reassure her she would be repaid Romance scammers are relentless and cunning preying on trust and emotion to exploit casualties FBI Denver Special Agent in Charge Mark Michalek mentioned in a message This was an egregious matter and through relentless investigative work the perpetrator was tracked down and brought to justice Sign up to get crime news sent straight to your inbox each day
