Joseph Kwadwo Badu Boateng spent ten years running a long con out of Ghana under the name "Dada Joe Remix," courting elderly Americans through screens and asking them to pay the taxes on a fortune that was never going to arrive. He pleaded guilty in Arizona on a conspiracy to commit wire fraud charge and agreed to $4.4 million in restitution.
Federal prosecutors in Ohio just closed the door on a romance fraud crew that ran for years on the loneliness of American retirees. The sentences add up to fifty years. The restitution adds up to more than $8 million. The machine that produced both is still running under other names.
Federal prosecutors in Ohio unsealed an indictment this week against two Ghanaian brothers and a Virginia woman accused of running a romance fraud ring that fed on lonely Americans for nearly two years. The script is older than the internet. The pipes are new.
Fifteen Ghanaian nationals have been arrested, indicted, or jailed since 2024 in a sprawling romance fraud crackdown. The newest names walked off a plane in May and never made it to the curb.
Ghana's cocoa regulator says some licensed buyers took government money meant to pay local farmers and used it to buy cheaper beans smuggled across the Ivorian border. The farmers are still waiting. The receipts will say what the receipts need to say.