Romance scammers pretending to be engineers con NC women out of thousands, feds say
Update: Oluwadamilare Kolaogunbule was sentenced to five years and 11 months in federal prison on March 17, 2022 after he pleaded guilty to money laundering. Kolaogunbule was also ordered to pay $2.3 million in criminal restitution to his victims.
Paul Edward was a civil engineer from Ireland with a teenage daughter, according to his dating profile.
He’d just moved to South Africa for a building project when a worker was hurt on the job. Suddenly he was financially responsible and needed cash — now.
That’s the story at least two men in Georgia are accused of telling a woman they met on Chemistry.com, an online dating website and the sister site to Match.com. One of the men was arrested Thursday and charged with conspiring to commit money laundering, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of North Carolina said in a news release.
Oluwadamilare Kolaogunbule — who goes by the name “Dare” — appeared before a federal judge in Atlanta. Kolaogunbule is a naturalized American citizen who was born in Nigeria, according to court filings.
An arrest warrant was also issued for his alleged co-conspirator, Samuel Ugberaese, who goes by “Putsammy.”
Ugberaese is a citizen of Nigeria who entered the U.S. on a tourist visa in 2014, according to court documents. He lived in Atlanta until the visa was canceled in 2016.
“It takes a heartless person to prey on lonely, elderly people,” FBI Special Agent in Charge Robert R. Wells said in Thursday’s news release. “Some of these victims were essentially robbed of their life savings so these conspirators could profit.”
Kolaogunbule and Ugberaese are accused of running a romance scam, which the FBI describes as a ploy by individuals using fake dating profiles to form relationships with people they meet online before taking their money. Prosecutors said Kolaogunbule operated the bank accounts where the money was deposited after Ugberaese and other unknown individuals reportedly convinced victims to send them thousands of dollars for made up emergencies.
One of the women they allegedly scammed is from Charleston County, South Carolina. Two others live in Wake County, North Carolina, according to an indictment unsealed Wednesday.
The men used the names “Paul Edward,” “Michael Alex” and “Timothy Greene” to lure unwitting women on Chemistry.com and Match.com, prosecutors said in court documents. They often sent the same photograph while pretending to be different men — usually an engineer who recently accepted a job overseas, according to the indictment.
Once they professed a romantic interest, they asked for money.
A woman in Wake County reportedly wired $10,000 to an account Kolaogunbule controlled through his export company, which prosecutors said was used to hide money from the scam.
The alleged scheme continued from 2014 to 2018 and involved at least nine bank accounts controlled by Kolaogunbule and his export and logistics companies. Prosecutors have asked him to forfeit at least $2.3 million related to the romance scam, court documents show.
Kolaogunbule faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted, prosecutors said.
This story was originally published February 4, 2021 at 6:11 PM with the headline "Romance scammers pretending to be engineers con NC women out of thousands, feds say."
