A one-time Suffolk County correction officer is scheduled to be sentenced Wednesday after he pleaded guilty to helping steal over $1 million from often-time elderly victims through “romance” and “advance fee” scams.
Francis Okafor opened bank accounts using fake passports to receive victims’ funds, quickly withdraw the funds, and then send the money to his co-conspirators, according to prosecutors. He opened at least 14 bank accounts at five different banks using two fake passports and pleaded guilty to one count of bank fraud.
A “romance” scam is a type of fraud where a person creates a fake online dating profile and then uses it to capitalize on victims’ desire to find companions, gain their trust, and then ask them to send money under false pretenses. An “advance fee” scam is when a person believes they are sending money upfront in order to receive a larger amount of money, which never comes.
“He and his co-conspirators capitalized on lonely, often elderly, individuals’ desire to find companions, using promises of love to persuade victims to wire large sums of money into accounts that Okafor and his coconspirators opened using counterfeit foreign passports,” prosecutors wrote. “Some of these victims depleted their life savings. While Okafor may not have wooed the victims, he surely understood that they were wiring large sums of money to accounts he…
