U.S. District Court in Tacoma has sentenced a 42-year-old Nigerian, Franklin Ikechukwu Nwadialo, to jail for his role in an online romance scam that stole $3.5 million from eight different victims.
Nwadialo was sentenced to five years in prison after being convicted, it was reported.
The development was confirmed in a press release issued by the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Western District of Washington.
In September 2024, Nwadialo was elected chairman of Ogbaru Local Government Area of Anambra State. Later that year, he was arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) at an airport in Texas upon arrival in the United States.
He was indicted in December 2023 on 14 counts of wire fraud for an online romance scam that defrauded eight victims of about $3.5 million over 15 years.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) investigated the case.
In the sentencing hearing, U.S. District Judge Tiffany M. Cartwright called the crime “devastating,” saying it’s “not an exaggeration to say it ruined lives—not only financial lives” but also from the nonmonetary harms the victims suffered, like “shame, depression, and isolation from their own family.”
“This defendant preyed on those already suffering from the loss of loved ones or other heartbreak.” “He basically disrupted the lives of people he never met for about 15 years,” said First Assistant U.S. Attorney Neil Floyd.
“He spun one story after another to gain the trust of his victims and their money – even claiming to run a non-profit that provides services for autistic children. “Nothing was too low for these conspirators.”
“For years, Mr. Nwadialo preyed on vulnerable victims seeking relationships online, earned their trust, and fed them lies to rob them of their life savings that totaled millions of dollars,” said W. Mike Harrington, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI Seattle field office.
“Fortunately, although Mr. Nwadialo was running his romance scams from abroad, he eventually came to the United States where he could be arrested and brought to justice for his crimes here in the Western District of Washington.”
Nwadialo used different aliases of the name “Giovanni” when he met his victims online via dating websites such as Match, Zoosk and Christian Café, according to records filed in the case. He used fake pictures and false information on his profile, often telling victims he was in the military and deployed overseas so he couldn’t meet them face-to-face. With these personas, Nwadialo created a multitude of reasons that he needed the victims to send him money. In one instance, 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 in paying the $150,000 fine.
Nwadialo also employed other manipulative tactics to persuade victims to send him money. He preyed on older people, often widowed or divorced. He told one victim he needed help moving money relating to the death of his father He told one victim he was investing money for her. And he said he needed money for things like his father’s funeral or his son’s tuition.
