[dropcap]P[/dropcap]opular Ghanaian social media influencer, Mona Faiz Montrage aka Hajia4real, has been extradited from the United Kingdom to the US for allegedly sw¥ndling over $2 million from older, single Americans in a romance sc@m.
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The US attorney office in a statement on Monday, May 15, said Montrage was arrested in the United Kingdom on November 10, 2022, and was extradited from the United Kingdom on May 12, 2023.
Arraigning the defendant before U.S. District Judge Paul A. Crotty on Monday, U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said: “As alleged, Mona Faiz Montrage was a member of a criminal conspiracy that specifically targeted older Americans through romance sc@ms.
These sc@ms can be both financially and emotionally dev@stating for vuln£rable victims. Thanks to the efforts of our law enforcement partners, Montrage was arrested abroad and has been brought to the United States to face justice.”
From at least 2013 through 2019, Montrage was allegedly involved with a group of con artists from West Africa that committed a series of fr@uds against individuals and businesses in the United States, including romance sc@ms.
“Many of the Enterprise’s romance sc@m victims were vuln£rable, older men and women who lived alone. The Enterprise frequently conducted the romance sc@ms by sending the victims emails, text messages, and social media messages that dec£ived the victims into believing that they were in romantic relationships with a person who had, in fact, a fake identity assumed by members of the Enterprise.
Once members of the Enterprise had successfully convinced victims that they were in a romantic relationship and had gained their trust, they convinced the victims, under false pretenses, to transfer money to bank accounts the victims believed were controlled by their romantic interests, when, in fact, the bank accounts were controlled by members of the Enterprise.
Ojelabi, the publisher of Freelanews, is an award winning and professionally trained mass communicator and a recipient of the D9112 Superstar Icon Award, who writes ruthlessly about pop culture, religion, politics and entertainment.
