Woman in jacksonville florida scammed by man on dating site

He pleaded not guilty and is being held pending a detention hearing scheduled for Monday. An email seeking comment was left Friday with his federal public defender. Osei, a native of Ghana who lives in Randolph, Massachusetts, used fake names on dating sites and opened bank accounts using passports with aliases, according to court documents. When the women transferred money to those accounts, he quickly withdrew it, converted it to cashiers checks, and used it to buy cars at auction and for other personal expenses, prosecutors said. He contacted the first woman, from Jacksonville, Florida, in December , authorities said.

He pleaded not guilty and is being held pending a detention hearing scheduled for Monday. An email seeking comment was left Friday with his federal public defender. Osei, a native of Ghana who lives in Randolph, Massachusetts, used fake names on dating sites and opened bank accounts using passports with aliases, according to court documents. When the women transferred money to those accounts, he quickly withdrew it, converted it to cashiers checks, and used it to buy cars at auction and for other personal expenses, prosecutors said. They communicated via phone, text and email, and he told her he worked on an oil rig overseas, had been involved in an explosion and had been detained by authorities in Dubai, according to records. He then contacted a woman from Montecito, California in December using another fake name, and they began to speak via phone and email, prosecutors said.

There were fictitious names, pleas for help, conversations and eventually requests for money. Federal authorities say a Massachusetts man used fake names on dating websites to lure women into sending him cash in what authorities described as a romance scheme that saw at least three women send him more than a half-a-million dollars. Kofi Osei of Randolph was arrested Thursday and charged in Boston federal court with multiple counts of money laundering, making false statements to a bank and wire fraud. The romance schemes conducted by Osei began in and continued into , authorities said.

He pleaded not guilty and is being held pending a detention hearing scheduled for Monday. An email seeking comment was left Friday with his federal public defender. Osei, a native of Ghana who lives in Randolph, Massachusetts, used fake names on dating sites and opened bank accounts using passports with aliases, according to court documents. When the women transferred money to those accounts, he quickly withdrew it, converted it to cashiers checks, and used it to buy cars at auction and for other personal expenses, prosecutors said. They communicated via phone, text and email, and he told her he worked on an oil rig overseas, had been involved in an explosion and had been detained by authorities in Dubai, according to records.