Officials said that a man in California was arrested on a 14 -point federal indictment, which claimed that he used dating applications to provide matches of millions of dollars by demonstrating as an investor.
Christopher Earl Lloyd, 39, from Orange County, is accused of implementing the plan from April 2021 to February 2024, according to the indictment, issued by the Ministry of Justice on Thursday in the Central Province in California.
Lloyd’s indictment is accused of using dating applications – such as Tinder and Hinge and Bumple – “to weaken with romantic relationships with the victims”, then lied to him about his financial resources and professional life to make them invest their money with him. When they sent him a criticism, he used it for his “personal interest”, according to the federal indictment.
Lloyd told the victims that he recently closed many real estate, that he was a financial manager for years, and that he was a vice president of a company called 13 Holdings and that he was working for an investment company called Landmark Holdings – none of them, in the words of the indictment.
He persuaded his victims that he was familiar with investments and encouraged them to send their money to him for investment, according to the indictment.
The indictment claims that he promised to see his victims “regular returns” on the money invested with him and that their investments “were secured in a large amount.” He also told them that they could withdraw their money at any time, says the indictment.
To legitimize the process, Lloyd signed the contracts that “set the investments that the victims had to make” and created “a false schedule of returns to their investments,” as the indictment claims. His victims sent money to a number of bank accounts he owns via the wires, Zelle and Cash or using cash, he says.
“Instead of using the victims’ money for investments, the defendant has largely spent Lloyd for his personal interest,” including the 2023 incident in which he used $ 40,000 of his victim’s money to write a check to Lexus agent in southern California.
The federal indictment lists at least five victims who say, on multiple occasions, Lloyd wire amounts that ranged between $ 15,500 to $ 110,000. In total, Lloyd collected more than $ 2 million of his victims through the plan, he says.
Lloyd was accused of 13 charges of fraud and the charge of engaging in a cash deal in the property derived from fraud, the US Prosecutor’s Office He said in a statement.
A preliminary appearance appeared in the American boycott court in Santa Anna on Thursday afternoon and is still in the federal reservation.
A lawyer who represented Lloyd immediately did not respond to a request for comment.
If convicted, Lloyd will face a 20 -year legal sentence in the federal prison for each of the 13 charges of wire fraud to 10 years in prison due to the number of cash transactions.