A Kenyan woman, who was in March arrested in connection to a Sh431 million romance scam in the United States of America, has pleaded guilty.
Florence Mwende Musau, 36, who hails from Canton, Ohio on Monday June 21, admitted that she indeed played part in the scam alongside five other suspects using telephones and computers.
According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the six allegedly faked their identities on social media and other dating sites and won the trust of their victims.
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In the process the six scammers could then take advantage of their anonymous identities and go ahead to defraud their victims.
According to FBI they further made fake passports which had numerous aliases and used them to open accounts in the cities of Massachusetts and Boston.
Mwende was nabbed when she started making withdrawals of huge amounts and frequently and the banks alerted relevant agencies.
FBI said that she used to withdraw amounts less than Sh1 million in order to evade detection or in any way she could not be asked to file currency transaction forms.
According to US law, Mwende risks 30 years in prison for the bank fraud offence and that she will be handed five years of supervised release and a fine of up to Sh107 million.
“The details contained in the charging documents are allegations. The remaining defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law,” a statement by the US Attorney’s Office read in part, adding that all sentences are imposed by a federal district court judge based upon the US sentencing Guidelines and other factors.
The sentencing of the six will take place in October 14 in Massachusetts District.
