Minnesota man charged with $1.6 million romance scam involving crypto exchanges

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Minnesota man charged with $1.6 million romance scam involving crypto exchanges

Minnesota man charged in $1.6 million romance scam involving crypto exchanges 00:47

DENVER — A 37-year-old Minnesota man has been federally charged in a $1.6 million cryptocurrency scam that targeted a Colorado woman looking for romance.

According to the Colorado US Attorney’s Office, Adetomiwa Seun Akindele has been charged with 10 counts of wire fraud and 11 counts of money laundering.

The indictment says that in early 2018, Akindele posed as an Italian-American businessman named Frank Labato while using a dating site. There, he would have made contact with a widow from Colorado.

The online communications turned into phone calls, according to the indictment, in which Akindele provided the woman with false details about her work history. He also sent her fake photos to sell her character online.

After a month or two of this, Akindele told the woman that he, or rather Frank Labato, was involved in a financial crisis and needed money to fix it. He convinced the widow to open a cryptocurrency account, to which she wired more than $1.6 million.

The indictment says Akindele went to work laundering that money before converting it into US dollars and putting it in his own accounts. After that, he gave the widow three fake promissory notes to reassure her that she would be reimbursed.

The Denver Division of the FBI conducted the investigation.

WCCO Staff

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