A 42-year-old Nigerian national, Franklin Nwadialo, has been sentenced to five years in prison in the United States for orchestrating a long-running online romance scam that defrauded victims of more than $3.5 million.
The sentence was handed down on Tuesday by the US District Court in Tacoma, Washington, a statement shared by the US authorities and posted on the official X handle of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) on Wednesday said.
According to the statement, Mr Nwadialo was arrested at an airport in Texas upon his arrival in the US in 2024.
He was indicted in December 2023 for 14 counts of wire fraud connected to his romance fraud scheme.
At the sentencing hearing US District Judge Tiffany Cartwright called the crime “devastating,” noting that it is “not an exaggeration to say it ruined lives—not only financial lives” but also from the nonmonetary harms the victims endured, such as “shame, depression, and isolation from their own family.”
First Assistant US Attorney Neil Floyd said: “This defendant preyed on those already suffering from the loss of loved ones or other heartbreak. For some 15 years he upended the lives of people he never met.
“He spun tale after tale to gain the victims’ trust and their money – even claiming to run a non-profit providing services for autistic children. No scheme was too low for these conspirators.”
“For years, Mr Nwadialo preyed on vulnerable victims looking for relationships online, gained their trust, and told them lies to steal their life savings totaling millions of dollars,” Mike Harrington, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI Seattle field office said.
“Fortunately, although he operated his romance scams from overseas, Mr Nwadialo ultimately traveled to the United States where he could be arrested and held accountable for his crimes here in the Western District of Washington.”
How the scheme worked
According to records filed in the case, Mr Nwadialo defrauded victims of more than $3.5 million.
Mr Nwadialo used various versions of the name ‘Giovanni” when he met his victims online on dating websites such as Match, Zoosk, and Christian Café.
Prosecutors said he used false images and information for his profile, typically telling victims that he was in the military and deployed overseas so he could not meet them in person.
Using these personas, the authorities said Mr Nwadialo invented many reasons he needed the victims to send him money.
In one case, prosecutors said he told a victim that he had been fined by the military for revealing his location to the victim and asked for the victim’s help paying the $150,000 fine.
Authorities said Mr Nwadialo used other manipulative ploys to convince victims to send him money. He targeted older, often widowed or divorced individuals. He represented to one victim that he needed help moving money in connection with his father’s death.
He told a victim that he was investing money for her. And he claimed he needed financial assistance, including help paying for his father’s funeral or his son’s school tuition.
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The impact on victims
Prosecutors said Mr Nwadialo’s offense was extremely serious and caused significant harm.
“For over 15 years, he and his confederates manipulated older, often widowed or divorced, individuals with savings into believing they had serious romantic partners for their own financial benefit.
One victim was in a “relationship” for three years with Mr Nwadialo’s fake online persona before learning the truth from the FBI. Another victim was a widow who thought she had found love again following her husband’s death.
Instead, she lost her home and life savings and, even now, continues to suffer financially from the taxes, fees, and penalties she incurred from liquidating her accounts and home to help ‘Giovanni.’ Try as they might, those victims may never truly recover from Mr Nwadialo’s conduct, ” Prosecutors said.
The FBI investigated the case, while Assistant US Attorneys Sok Jiang and David Martin prosecuted it.
