He wooed online daters with ‘words of love’ – and stole $800,000 from them, feds say
A New Jersey man pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit wire fraud, money laundering and tax evasion in connection to a money-making scheme using online dating sites, the Department of Justice said on Nov. 17.
Rubbin Sarpong, of Millville, New Jersey, and several conspirators participated in the “online romance fraud” scheme for years, from Jan. 2016 to Sept. 3, 2019, according to a criminal complaint filed against the 37-year-old in the District of New Jersey .
Sarpong and others are accused of setting up profiles on dating websites — including Plenty of Fish, Ourtime.com and Match.com — using either made-up or stolen personas. They masqueraded as members of the U.S. military who were stationed overseas and established relationships with victims on the websites and over email, “wooing them with words of love,” before asking them for money, the complaint said .
Sarpong and the others, some of whom live in Ghana, reportedly told the victims that their money would be used to ship gold bars to the United States. The stories they told victims varied, but the most common one was that they were stationed in Syria and had received, recovered or been awarded gold bars. They told many of the victims that they would return their money once the gold bars made it to the U.S., the complaint said .
At least 30 victims wired money to Sarpong and his co-conspirators, according to the complaint. Sarpong and the others are accused of using multiple email accounts and Voice over Internet Protocol phone numbers to tell victims how to wire the money, including sending them recipient names, addresses, financial institutions and accounting numbers. Victims also sometimes mailed personal checks or cashier’s checks to the conspirators or sent money with transfer services like Western Union or MoneyGram, the complaint said.
Sarpong received money in 13 bank accounts, some of which bore the names of his family and friends, as well as a “fictitious business entity,” Rubbin Sarpong Autosales, a news release from the Department of Justice said.
From there, the money was withdrawn in cash, wired to other domestic bank accounts, or wired to the conspirators in Ghana, the release said.
Twenty-seven of the 30 victims identified in the complaint sent around $823,326 total to Sarpong, the complaint said, mostly by wiring money to bank accounts he controlled or transferring money to him with transmit services.
He transferred around $454,159 to his co-conspirators, the complaint said.
Sarpong used the money obtained in the scheme to purchase property in Ghana and posted photos on social media of himself with large amounts of cash, high-end cars, designer clothes and expensive jewelry, the complaint said.
Sarpong pleaded guilty to all three charges of committing wire fraud, conspiring to commit money laundering and tax evasion.
The charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering each have a maximum penalty of 20 years and a $250,000 fine, or “twice the gross gain or loss resulting from the offense” — whichever amount is greater. The tax evasion charge comes with a penalty of $250,000 and a maximum penalty of five years in prison, a news release from the Department of Justice said.
Sarpong agreed to pay $1.76 million in restitution and $387,923 in taxes to the Internal Revenue Service, as well as “full restitution” of an unnamed amount to the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Agriculture and the state of New Jersey for the Medicaid coverage and SNAP benefits for himself and his children.
Sarpong will be sentenced on March 21, 2022, the release said.
Millville is about 74 miles south of Trenton, New Jersey.
This story was originally published November 19, 2021 at 1:16 PM with the headline "He wooed online daters with ‘words of love’ – and stole $800,000 from them, feds say."