An Athens, Tennessee, woman has been implicated in a federal forfeiture warrant as a “money mule” who helped bilk a Minnesota-based nonprofit out of at least $2.3 million in a complex online romantic money laundering scheme.
According to a complaint filed April 2 in U.S. District Court in Chattanooga, the federal government was granted a warrant for the seizure of three cryptocurrency accounts opened in the name of Athens resident Linda Winder. Winder is not facing any charges in the case.
The complaint was in connection with an alleged fraud scheme involving the laundering of funds stolen from a nonprofit organization victimized in a business email compromise.
The alleged crime resulted in a loss of at least $2.3 million. The victim in the case is an unnamed nonprofit in Minnesota providing transportation and home-based services for people with disabilities across the state.
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The scheme surfaced in October 2023 when a family member of Winder’s reported finding an envelope in her home containing a series of deposit slips from cryptocurrency kiosks totaling $162,730 worth of Bitcoin, FBI agent Sean Reid said in a federal affidavit filed April 2. Since Winder’s husband died in 2017, the family member told authorities, many people contacted her online, identifying themselves as single men.
In 2019, Winder had begun an online relationship with a person going by the name of “Joe Milano,” the affidavit said. The family member reported Winder had wired money to Milano as part of a romance scam and was concerned she was also laundering money.
Winder participated as a “money mule,” Reid said in the affidavit. A money mule is someone who transfers illegally acquired money on behalf of or at the direction of someone else. Money mules are often recruited through an online romance or an online job scheme to move money electronically through bank accounts. The mules are often asked to use an established bank account or open a new bank account to receive money from someone they have never met in person.
“In this instance, the money mule acting on behalf of a person or persons unknown received multiple deposits of tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars over a period of several months,” Reid said in the affidavit. “She then laundered by transferring to a Coinbase account, one of many financial accounts used in the laundering of these stolen funds and converting to cryptocurrency.
“The FBI believes that over the course of Winder’s relationship with Milano, between 2021 and 2023, Winder participated in the laundering of no less than $2.3 million,” Reid said.
A message seeking comment left for Winder on a phone listed in her name was not returned.
Rachelle Barnes, spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Chattanooga, did not respond to questions asked by phone and email seeking details about the case.
In a series of interviews with the FBI, Winder and her family described a scheme in which Milano gradually coaxed Winder to send him money, initially from her own funds, in increasing amounts, before eventually directing Winder to open at least one account at a cryptocurrency exchange, Reid said.
Winder took out several personal loans totaling $150,000 and withdrew about $33,000 of her own money and sent it to Milano. Winder acknowledged she had transacted hundreds of thousands of dollars through her Wells Fargo Bank account on Milano’s behalf, authorities said.
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The FBI said Winder used accounts at several financial institutions to transfer money defrauded from other parties, including unknown third parties, Reid’s affidavit said. Winder then forwarded the money, at Milano’s behest, to her cryptocurrency account or through cryptocurrency kiosks to a cryptocurrency exchange. Some money was sent to other financial institutions or people.
Contact Southeast Tennessee reporter Ben Benton at bbenton@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6569.
Ben Benton
bbenton@timesfreepress.com
Ben Benton is a news reporter at the Chattanooga Times Free Press. He covers Southeast Tennessee’s Bledsoe, Bradley, Franklin, Grundy, Marion, McMinn, Meigs, Rhea and Sequatchie counties.
Ben has worked at the Times Free Press since November 2005. Ben was born and raised in Cleveland, Tennessee, a graduate of Bradley Central High School. He has a bachelor’s degree in communications from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
