A Hawaii resident is one of dozens of women across the country who fell victim to a “romance scam” by sending money to two men posing as high-ranking U.S. military officers deployed overseas.

Federal prosecutors in St. Louis on Wednesday announced the indictments of Ovuoke Frank Ofikoro, 41, and Bonmene Sibe, 27, who are charged with conspiracy to defraud, mail fraud and aggravated identity theft. An alleged female accomplice, 27-year-old Trenice Hassel, was indicted for aiding the scheme by fraudulently opening a post office box.

According to the grand jury indictment, the mostly elderly victims lived in Hawaii, Illinois, Utah, Mississippi, Maryland, Florida, Tennessee and other states, but the document did not provide any other information on the Hawaii case. Venton Blandin, spokesman for the U.S. Attorney in the Eastern District of Missouri, said on Friday the case “remains in progress” and he was unable to provide details beyond what was contained in the indictment.

“Taking advantage of vulnerable individuals is always awful. In particular, these romance scams often succeed against elderly victims who have lost partners or have been isolated due to the pandemic,” said U.S. Attorney Jeff Jensen in a news release. “Making matters worse, elderly victims are frequently unwilling to discuss financial matters with children and are too embarrassed to report their losses to law enforcement. We need to be vigilant and watch for red flags such as: increased use of internet messaging services; frequent trips to banks and post offices; abnormal requests for money; and increased secrecy.”

The indictment said that from May 2019 through July 31, the suspects pretended to be romantically interested in the victims, who ranged in age from 45 to 82, and enticed the women to send money and electronic equipment to St. Louis-area post office boxes.

All together they pocketed cash and merchandise with a total value of more than $500,000, with some of the shipments containing as much as $50,000 in currency. Ofikoro and Sibe transferred some of the funds received to financial accounts in Nigeria, the indictment said.

Prosecutors say the defendants adopted aliases and stolen photographs to create online dating profiles and social media accounts that they used to reach out to the victims on the pretext of seeking a relationship. According to the indictment, “as part of the scheme, the conspirators groomed the women by promising to marry them and addressing the women as ‘Wife’ and ‘Wifey.’ The women believed they were working with their romantic interests to build a future together.”

By communicating only via emails, text messages and social media programs rather than audio and video communication, multiple individuals were able to pose as the romantic interests and conceal their accents, the indictment said. “Conspirators routinely and fraudulently claimed to be high-ranking military service men deployed in ‘war zones’ or in overseas classified military locations, a falsehood designed to enable the women to excuse the lack of video and audio communication.”

The defendants on occasion also falsely purported to be diplomats working on behalf of their romantic interests, and by using U.S. addresses were able to “lull the women into a sense of security,” the indictment said.

Among those defrauded in the scheme were a 71-year-old Tennessee woman who sent $15,000 to someone who claimed to be a U.S. Army general stationed in Syria. She believed the money would be used to transport him from a Syrian hospital to America on a bomb-proof plane.

In another instance, a 71-year-old New Mexico woman received a Facebook friend request from someone posing as a three-star general in Syria who claimed to have found a “portfolio” of cash and diamonds that he was sending to her to prevent its seizure in the event of a military raid. To secure the portfolio, the woman mailed the “general” $160,000 over a period of three months, the indictment said.

“Romance scams prey on people’s vulnerabilities and cost victims almost half a billion dollars a year,” said Richard Quinn, special agent in charge of the FBI’s St. Louis Division, in the release. “If you meet someone online and the person asks you for money, question whether this could be a romance scam. There’s nothing romantic about being swindled out of your life’s savings.”

The Federal Trade Commission reports that in 2019, $201 million was reported lost to romance scams. In fact, people have reported losing more money to romance scams in the past two years than to any other fraud reported to the FTC.

“Romance scammers create fake profiles on dating sites and apps or contact their targets through popular social media sites like Instagram, Facebook or Google Hangouts,” according to the FTC website. “The scammers strike up a relationship with their targets to build their trust, sometimes talking or chatting several times a day. Then, they make up a story and ask for money.”

Scammers often say they’re living or traveling outside the country and claim to be working on an oil rig, in the military or as a doctor with an international organization, the FTC says.

In August 2019, a 252- count federal grand jury indictment in Los Angeles charged 80 defendants, mostly Nigerian nationals, with participating in a massive conspiracy to steal millions of dollars through romance scams and other fraud schemes.

The victims included an 81-year-old Hawaii woman who connected via Facebook with a supposed oil rig worker in Belgium. She ended up sending the scammer $4,800, and her family told authorities she had already lost an estimated $750,000 in a series of scams and was deeply in debt.

DON’T GET SCAMMED

>> Never send money or gifts to a “sweetheart” you haven’t met in person.

>> If you suspect a romance scam, stop communicating with the person immediately.

>> Talk to someone you trust, and pay attention if your friends or family say they’re concerned about your new love interest.

>> Do a search for the type of job the person has to see if other people have heard similar stories. For example, you could do a search for “oil rig scammer” or “US Army scammer.”

>> Do a reverse image search of the person’s profile picture to see if it’s associated with another name or with details that don’t match up; those are signs of a scam.

>> If you paid a romance scammer with a gift card, immediately contact the company that issued the card. Tell them you paid a scammer with the gift card and ask if they can refund your money.

>> Report suspected scams to the FTC at ftc.gov/complaint. Notify the website or app where you met the scammer, too.

Source: Federal Trade Commission