“It did not matter when [he] revealed that his credit was ruined, that he could not afford to pay for medical insurance, his bills, or even his medications,” the man’s son wrote. He said the scammers “took advantage of an elderly man with declining physical and mental health, showing no remorse in trying to extract the maximum amount possible for him at every turn.”
Linda Mbimadong and Richard Broni were sentenced in Alexandria federal court Friday to 36 months and 19 months in prison, respectively, for laundering money for the scammers in exchange for a cut of the proceeds.
“This was really an ageless, classic confidence game that has played out over modern social media,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Russell Carlberg said in court.
Prosecutors said Mbimadong and Broni were small players in a large operation that used a variety of tricks, including promised romances, to prey on vulnerable, older Americans. The scheme was sophisticated enough that it included fake online biographies for the participants, who posed as lawyers, accountants, diplomats and other successful people who had gotten into sudden financial trouble. Other scammers would post as lawyers or financial planners to add legitimacy to the requests. They would press victims for personal information and then use those details to exploit them.
Prosecutors have identified two dozen victims of the conspiracy. Nationwide, the Federal Trade Commission says, reports of…
