35-year-old New Jersey man Rubbin Sarpong has been accused of seducing countless women online and scamming upwards of $2 million. As the New York Post reports, Sarpong would convince his victims to send him money by promising them bars of gold from the Middle East in return. Him and a team of conspirators, a number of whom live in Ghana, allegedly scammed over 30 women from Jan. 2016 through Sept. 2019.
Sarpong and his team used a "myriad email accounts and Voice Over Internet protocol phone numbers." Victims wired money directly to Sarpong and his conspirator's bank accounts, while others would even send him checks through the post.
"Occasionally, victims also mailed personal checks and/or cashier’s checks to the conspirators and also transferred money to the conspirators via money transfer services, such as Western Union and MoneyGram," Department of Justice officials said. "The funds were not used for the purposes claimed by the conspirators—that is, to transport non-existent gold bars to the United States—but were instead withdrawn in cash, wired to other domestic bank accounts, and wired to other conspirators in Ghana."
The New York Times reports that one of his victims killed herself after Sarpong failed to show up at the Baltimore airport he promised he would. He told her that he would bring her "two trunks with 'family treasure'" from Syria worth $12 million. Sarpong allegedly told the woman that he was a United States soldier and that he was stationed abroad.
Sarpong was arrested on Wednesday and charged with conspiracy to commit fraud. In total, he allegedly received $823,386 from the total of $2.1 million him and his team received from the victims. The maximum sentence he could receive is 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
