New Jersey man gets 14-year sentence for role in online dating scheme

Rubbin Sarpong, 38, of Millville, New Jersey, should additionally pay greater than $3 million in restitution to 36 victims below the sentence imposed Tuesday, in addition to greater than $385,000 to the Inner Income Service. He had pleaded responsible final November to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and cash laundering and tax evasion counts.

Federal prosecutors say the scheme ran from January 2016 to September 2019. They are saying Sarpong and his co-conspirators, a number of of whom stay in Ghana, arrange phony profiles on on-line relationship websites utilizing fictitious or stolen identities and posing as U.S. army personnel.

They finally pretended to forge romantic relationships with at the very least 40 victims general and sought cash from them, usually purportedly to ship gold bars to the US. The conspirators informed many victims that their cash could be returned as soon as the gold bars have been acquired in the US, however as an alternative it was withdrawn in money, wired to different home financial institution accounts and to different conspirators in Ghana.

Sarpong acquired roughly $1.14 million in taxable earnings from the scheme however did not file earnings tax returns and paid no earnings tax, prosecutors mentioned.