#9-Rashia Wilson Florida woman Rashia Wilson, who scammed the IRS
out of millions of dollars, openly bragged about being invincible on Facebook after being sentenced
to a 21-year prison sentence for wire fraud, aggravated identity theft, and firearm possession
in 2015. The 35-year-old woman reportedly stole the personal information of thousands of
unidentified victims, using their data to submit fake tax returns, and fraudulently receiving
millions of dollars from the US government. Wilson boasted about her crimes online, calling herself
the “first lady” and “queen of IRS tax fraud.” She and a co-conspirator, named as Maurice J. Larry,
were said to have orchestrated their scheme from at least April of 2009 through September of 2012.
The woman had her initial 21-year sentence thrown out in January of 2015, after an appeals court
judge ruled that procedural errors had led to her receiving an unduly harsh punishment. However,
in March, Wilson was re-sentenced to 21 years yet again. An online petition for
the convicted swindler’s release was set up in the aftermath of her incarceration, calling her
punishment “unlawful” and an “example of racial disparities in federal criminal sentences”.
#8-Derek Alldred On June the 1st of 2017,
Texas man Derek Alldred, aged 46, was arrested for scamming women he met on dating sites. The man
had multiple aliases he used in order to seduce his victims, including Rich Tailor and Richard
Peterson. A warrant for his arrest had been issued in December of 2016. However, he managed to evade
capture while using new profiles to continue his scams, at various points pretending to be a
doctor, a lawyer, and a military man. Most of the women he targeted lived in Minnesota, California,
and Arizona. Alldred used different pictures he’d stolen from unsuspecting men’s social media
accounts to conceal his true identity. One of his victims, identified only as Linda, told the police
that Alldred had pretended to be a reservist in the Navy, who was going after a PhD in political
science. He even managed to acquire a military uniform, as well as a Purple Heart and Silver
star, all of which he asked Linda to keep at her residence. Alldred reportedly stole Linda’s entire
life savings, which amounted to over $200,000, before she uncovered his lies. Before his 2017
arrest, Allred had already been convicted of over 10 felonies. In August of 2018, he was sentenced
to 24 years behind bars after pleading guilty to several counts of mail fraud and identity theft.
#7-Jamie Petrone-Codrington 42-year-old Jamie Petrone-Codrington,
an administrator at the Yale School of Medicine, was sentenced to nine years in prison for fraud
and tax evasion on October the 13th of 2022. Earlier that year, the Connecticut woman had
pleaded guilty to stealing over $40 million in electronics from the Department of Emergency
Medicine over the course of nearly a decade. By reaching an agreement with prosecutors,
she avoided facing a possible sentence of 23 years behind bars on more serious charges.
Petrone-Codrington admitted to selling the computers and other high-end electronic items,
the proceeds of which she then used to purchase four houses,
a $5,000 Louis Vuitton bag, as well as half a dozen cars for her family.
#6-Renan Augusto Gomes Renan Augusto Gomes, a scam
artist known as the Brazilian Tinder Swindler, was arrested on September the 21st of 2022,
after crashing his car at the conclusion of a police chase. The 36-year-old man was given his
nickname by several media outlets following the release of the Netflix documentary “The Tinder
Swindler” centered on the eponymous Simon Leviev’s crimes. Gomes seduced at least 7 women on dating
sites such as Tinder, Happn and Lovoo, using fake sob stories to convince them to help him
financially. He didn’t use his real name, instead identifying himself as Augusto Keller. The man
reportedly targeted women aged between 34 and 40, with high-paying jobs, and who were looking for
love. Gomes even met the families of some of the women he ended up swindling. In several cases, he
offered his romantic interests the opportunity to invest in a purported business venture, but once
the women wired him the money, he would move on to his next target. Police believe there to have been
many other victims who hadn’t come forward at the time of his arrest, and urged the public to
contact the authorities if they had any further information regarding Gomes’ criminal activity.
#5-Simon Leviev
Between 2017 and 2019, Simon Leviev, a man in his early 30s, scammed over $10 million from dozens
of victims all across Europe. Born in Israel, he emigrated to several different countries in the
European Union while orchestrating his romance scams, tricking women he met through Tinder
into dumping their money into his Ponzi schemes. The man’s crimes became public after an article
describing his modus operandi was published in a Norwegian tabloid, and later exposed in
a Netflix documentary. Leviev, the so-called “Tinder Swindler”, left Israel after spending
time in prison for fraud. He changed his name to avoid questions about his past, a method he would
use several more times prior to his eventual arrest. He met women through Tinder, seducing
them by flashing an extravagant lifestyle, which was bankrolled by the funds he’d stolen
from previous victims. Once he’d gained their trust, Leviev would ask for more and more money
from the women he scammed before disappearing and moving on to his next target. In 2019, Leviev was
arrested by Interpol for using a forged passport and spent five months in an Israeli prison. He
was released early due to pandemic-related safety measures. The man adamantly denied
the accusations of his alleged victims. Since the Netflix documentary was released,
he’s been attempting to profit from the resulting media attention. Leviev reportedly hired a talent
manager and created a Cameo account, charging between $200 and $2,000 for personalized videos.
#4-Desiree Boltos and Paul Hill
Between 2012 and 2017, Texas couple Desiree Boltos and Paul Hill, posed as siblings in order to scam
at least six men out of more than $3 million. The first confirmed victim was Danny Barnett,
aged 72, who met then-32-year-old Boltos at a post office back in 2012. She told Barnett that she was
a widow, and after a brief romance ensued, she claimed that she had cancer and couldn’t
afford the requisite treatment. They married four months after their initial meeting so that Boltos
could have access to her new husband’s insurance. Over the next few months, Barnett bought his new
bride a car and a house, although they didn’t live together. Boltos introduced him to her purported
brother, Paul Hill, who was in reality the father of her children and common-law husband. During the
years that followed, Boltos repeated the scam with several other men, all over the age of 65,
pretending to need money for medical or legal issues, or requesting her partners to invest in
her brother’s business. Among those victimized by the pernicious scheme was James Olmstead,
a retired military man, Paul Wilbur, Richard Lima, Lois Cardin, and Douglas Wingo,
a veteran suffering from dementia. It was Wingo’s sister, Patti Hamilton,
who became suspicious after discovering that Boltos had obtained multiple credit cards in her
brother’s name. Boltos and Hill were ultimately taken into custody and, in November of 2018,
the former was sentenced to 85 years in prison. She was also ordered to pay restitution to her
victims. Two years later, Hill was found guilty of money laundering, theft, and organized criminal
activity, for which he was sentenced to 125 years. After appealing the decision
and requesting to serve his time concurrently, the man’s prison term was reduced to 85 years.
#3-Kelle Bryan Actress and singer Kelle Bryan,
known for her roles in Hollyoaks and Loose Women, opened up about being the victim of a love scam,
in the hopes of helping other women notice the warning signs. In February of 2022, during an
episode of Loose Women, a talk show she co-hosts, Bryan explained that she was manipulated into a
coercive relationship by a man she refrained from mentioning by name. She detailed how her partner
had isolated her from family and friends, and had gained control of every aspect of her life before
she managed to break free from his manipulative behavior. Bryan only caught on to her partner’s
lies after she received a call from her bank and discovered several large transactions had been
made without her authorization. She’d apparently been so embarrassed about being conned that she
didn’t make any attempts to recover the stolen money or contact the authorities. Although Bryan
didn’t tell her co-hosts exactly how much money she’d been swindled out of, she did say that
the scammer had purchased high-end cars and other expensive luxury items with the ill-gotten funds.
Today’s topic was requestd by David Macmillan. If you have any other topics
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#2-Wilson Jackson Wilson Jackson, a 37-year-old resident of Woodland
Hills, California, was arrested on May the 23rd of 2019 for posing as a millionaire on dating sites
in order to swindle money from unsuspecting women. Many of his victims didn’t live locally. Instead,
Jackson would make his dates fly from out of state, with promises of reimbursing them
for their various travel expenses. Following their rendezvous, the man would wait until the
women fell asleep before going through their wallets. Then, Jackson stole their identities,
using their credit and debit card information to buy fancy clothes, pay bills and even purchase
gifts and lavish vacations for other victims. He was thus able to maintain the illusion that
he had seemingly never-ending funds, and convinced women to give him loans by fabricating situations
in which he couldn’t readily access his money. It’s not known precisely when Jackson started his
predatory schemes, but by 2011, Orlando police had become well-aware of his crimes, considering him a
person of interest in several cases of credit card fraud. One of his victims, Acacia Oudinot, an Air
Force veteran, told police that he’d purchased a plane ticket for her to visit him in California,
but after it turned out to be fake, he claimed to have been scammed and requested that she buy a new
one with her own funds, promising to reimburse her later. When she returned home, Oudinot
realized that Jackson was not only ignoring her texts and calls, but that he’d stolen her credit
card information to make more than $7,000 worth of purchases. The serial dating scammer faced
33 felony charges, to which he pleaded not guilty during a preliminary court hearing.
#1-Rubbin Sarpong
On May the 3rd of 2022, New Jersey man Rubbin Sarpong was sentenced to 14 years behind bars
for money laundering, wire fraud, and tax evasion in connection to a romance scam he’d orchestrated.
Along with several co-conspirators, most of whom resided in Ghana, the 38-year-old defrauded over
$2 million from at least 40 victims. The group posed online as military men looking for love.
When they zeroed in on a target, they claimed that they were stuck overseas and needed money in
order to release gold bars or other goods that the Syrian government had seized. Cash, money orders
and checks were transferred to different bank accounts linked to Sarpong, who would continually
fabricate new complications that precluded him from resolving his supposed predicament. Sarpong
pleaded guilty to all counts in order to avoid a harsher sentence, agreeing to pay restitution to
36 victims, as well as over $380,000 to the IRS. It was reported that, because most of
the man’s accomplices weren’t from the US, it’s unlikely they’d be prosecuted for their crimes.
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