Mona Faiz Montrage, a Ghanaian native social media influencer, has been extradited from the UK to New York for allegedly defrauding American men and women of more than $2 million through fraudulent long-distance love affairs, the officials announced. federal prosecutors on Monday.
The 30-year-old defendant appeared in Manhattan federal court Monday for her alleged involvement in the series of romance schemes targeting older people living alone, prosecutors said in a statement.
She was charged with wire fraud, money laundering, receiving stolen money and conspiracy, and faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted on the main charge, it said. New York Post.
Faiz Montrage has around 4.2 million followers on Instagram from his @Hajia4Reall account, ranking in the top 10 most followed in Ghana. According to prosecutors from at least 2013 to 2019, she was involved with a group of West African scammers who assumed false identities to trick people into thinking they were in a relationship with them using email, text and social media messages.
The scammers then had the victims wire money to them under false pretenses, such as helping to transport gold to the US from abroad, solving bogus FBI investigations, and payments to help bogus US military officers in Afghanistan, court documents allege.
In one case, she allegedly tricked a victim herself into sending her $89,000 via 82 wire transfers under the guise of helping her father’s farm in Ghana.
“As alleged, Mona Faiz Montrage was a member of a criminal conspiracy that specifically targeted older Americans through romance scams,” Manhattan US Attorney Damian Williams said in the statement. “These scams can be financially and emotionally devastating for vulnerable victims.”
Faiz Montrage was arrested on November 10, 2022 in the UK for the alleged conspiracy and was extradited to the US on Friday. She pleaded “not guilty” during her court appearance and was scheduled to be released under house arrest at her aunt’s New Jersey residence in the coming days on $500,000 bail and with GPS tracking via a security monitor. ankle, his lawyer and the prosecutor’s office confirmed.
All charges are mere accusations and those charged are presumed innocent until proven guilty in court.