Sulaimon Kadelu, 30, of Old Bridge, is facing charges of theft and money laundering.
Police say he found a 76-year-old Evesham woman on the dating app OurTime and conned her into taking out a loan for him so he could to come to America and pursue their relationship. He was tracked down after tapping an ATM to get the money.
Consumer cybercrime experts say this kind of con, unfortunately, happens all the time.
“When people get emotional, they can send this money quickly,” said Anthony Mangeluzo, owner of the Moorestown-based IT support service PCS. “And guess what? More than likely, it’s not coming back.”
And scams aren’t confined to affairs of the heart either.
“For instance on Facebook, people are making fake accounts saying they’re stuck somewhere and asking for money,” he added. “It goes on and on. There’s some wire scams where right before you buy your house, someone hacks your attorney’s email and switches the wiring information. You have to be so careful nowadays.”
If you become a victim, Mangeluzo said the first thing you should do is call law enforcement, particularly the FBI. The woman in this case called Evesham authorities and was lucky on one front: Kadelu was in the U.S. More often than not, the suspects are out of the country, which makes it a lot harder to track down.