Love At First Site: Ex-NJ Couple, Nigerian Wingman Charged In $4.5M Cyberfootsies Scam
A former New Jersey couple and a Nigerian national scammed more than 100 lonely hearts out of $4.5 million in an elaborate online romance scheme, federal authorities charged.
Martins Inalegwu, 34, of Philadelphia and Steincy Mathieu, 26, of Brooklyn cooked up the plot with Moses Chukwuebuka Alexander and several of his Nigerian brethren, an indictment returned by a federal grand jury alleges.
Together, they trolled online dating and social media sites for willing marks, whom they “wooed with words of love” on the phone and in emails, U.S. Attorney for New Jersey Philip R. Sellinger said.
T…
'Love Psychic' Convinced Client To Mail $90M In Jewels To Paramus, Federal Court Docs Say
A precious, pink, 13.15-carat diamond from Qatar was among the $90 million worth of jewelry that a New Jersey relationship psychic convinced a client to swipe in his quest for love, court papers say.
John Lee, who has a mailing address on Route 17 in Paramus, met his alleged victim on a website called Purple Garden, where he posed as a "love expert" under the username 1111Giovanni1111, federal prosecutors said in court papers filed in Florida.
Lee, of Davenport, FL, convinced his victim — who worked for a wealthy individual in Qatar — to send him jewelry to be cleansed of bad spirits in Jun…
Yonkers Man Among Trio Nabbed In $701K Fraud Scheme, Feds Say
Three men are facing federal charges for allegedly using other people’s identities to defraud the New York Labor Department out of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Errol Murray, age 21, of Yonkers; Taliek Lanier, age 22, of Albany; and Thomas Brace, age 61, of Altoona, Pennsylvania, formerly of Albany, were all arrested on federal charges of mail and wire fraud, plus identity theft.
Federal prosecutors said the trio conspired with a 36-year-old Albany woman, Jamie Johnson, and provided her with the personal identifying information of other people.
Jonson pleaded guilty in February 2022 of…
