A Georgia man has been convicted in a Louisiana federal court for his role in a scheme that involved stringing along women online then extracting millions of dollars from them.
During a four-day trial, prosecutors presented evidence that Kenneth G. Akpieyi, 44, played a key role in defrauding women by connecting them with romantic partners on Facebook, Instagram and other social media platforms, the U.S. Attorney’s office for the Eastern District of Louisiana said Monday.
The conversations then moved to encrypted platforms, including WhatsApp, where the perpetrators asked the women to send money for fraudulent reasons, such as for charity or to help with family illnesses, prosecutors said.
Eight victims testified to total losses exceeding $3 million, prosecutors said.
Michael M. Simpson, the acting U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Louisianna, praised the FBI in New Orleans for their work on the case. Simpson also thanked the Cobb County Sheriff’s Office and the FBI in Atlanta.
Akpieyi, who lived in Marietta under the alias Phillip Anderson, used his company, KGA Autobrokers LLC, to obscure the movement of victims’ money, with funds reaching bank accounts in China, the United Arab Emirates and other countries, prosecutors said.
Akpieyi will be sentenced Nov. 5 and could get up to 20 years in prison for conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud and 20 years for conspiracy to commit money laundering. He also faces hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines.
