Six women thought they found love online. It was a married father of 2 scamming them out of millions
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A man from Nigeria pleaded guilty in a $2.5 million romance scam that devastated six victims.
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cryptocurrency
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July 6, 2025
11:47 AM
Fortune
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Finance·fraudSix women thought they found love online
It was a married father of 2 scamming them out of millionsBY Amanda GerutBY Amanda GerutNews Editor, West CoastAmanda GerutNews Editor, West CoastAmanda Gerut is the west coast editor at Fortune, overseeing publicly traded es, executive compensation, Securities and Exchange Commission regulations, and investigations
SEE FULL BIORomance scams often target vulnerable women
PhotoAlto/Frederic Cirou via Getty ImagesA 35-year-old married father of two has pleaded guilty in a sophisticated romance scam that targeted women in Florida, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Kansas
They all met and fell in love with the same man online, who purported to be working on an oil rig
The women sent him millions of dollars to cover medical bills after he claimed to be injured in a fire
A Massachusetts woman believed she was in a committed relationship with “Williams Moore. ” So did a New Jersey woman, who fell head over heels for her boyfriend, “Manuel Sykes. ” A Florida woman met “Edward Nowak” online and believed him when he told her worked in Cyprus
Turns out, they were all “dating” the same man—a married father of two young boys in Nigeria who worked in real estate and had a background in network marketing and sales
Charles Uchenna Nwadavid
He pleaded guilty in Boston in June, admitting to charges of mail fraud, aiding and abetting money laundering, and money laundering
According to court documents, Nwadavid was running a romance scam, in which criminals love-bomb lonely—often elderly—people on dating apps and social media to quickly gain their affections
The targets are often vulnerable women
Romance scams boomed during the pandemic and have since continued to haunt people over 60
According to the FBI, there were nearly 18,000 complaints romance fraud in 2024, and some 7,600 victims were over age 60
The losses attributed to that age cohort totaled $389 million last year, with total losses among all age groups apximately $672 million
A 66-year-old Montana woman involved in a different romance scam named Rita told authorities she lost more than $90,000 over nearly five months in 2024 after she fell for a “celebrity” who started asking her for money
She said she was vulnerable as she went through a divorce and became almost addicted to the texts she would get from her purported romantic partner. “For me, these texts were a drug,” she said. “, I needed them to. ” Now, they make her sick and she said she feels she lost her heart and soul by being scammed in the fake relationship. “Hindsight is always 20-20,” Rita told the FBI, according to a June. “But I wasn’t thinking with my brain, I was thinking with my heart. ” In addition to Nwadavid, authorities in June sentenced five people for running a $17 million romance and investment scam ring
Similarly, a Missouri woman admitted last month to aiding a Nigerian romance scam that netted $1 million and involved at least one victim in her early 70s
In the other romance frauds, Nwadavid never met any of the six women involved in the romance scam in person, only communicating with them through and text
As part of the scheme and to keep himself concealed, authorities said Nwadavid tricked his first victim, one of three women from Massachusetts, into opening a crypto account at Bitcoin of America. (Bitcoin of America was a crypto exchange headquartered in Chicago that has since ceased its operations. ) Nwadavid then accessed her account and transferred the funds to Bitcoin wallets he controlled, authorities said
From there, Nwadavid used the Massachusetts woman as a “money mule” to collect illicit funds from other unsuspecting women. 2019 to June 2019, the New Jersey woman sent $896,000 to the money mule on behalf of her boyfriend, “Manuel Sykes. ” The Florida woman sent $235,000; another Massachusetts woman sent $276,000
A fifth woman sent $230,000 and the sixth sent $239,100
Five of the women were told their “boyfriend” had been seriously injured in an oil rig fire and needed Bitcoin to pay his medical bills
The sixth woman, who d in Great Bend, Kansas, believed her boyfriend “Clarence Manning” had inherited $2 million from his father but needed to travel to Spain to collect it
He then claimed to be hospitalized overseas
At that point, Nwadavid allegedly tricked the first woman, his money mule, into transferring the $2. 5 million she had collected from the other five women into her crypto account
Nwadavid then allegedly traversed 210 Bitcoin from her account through intermediary accounts and into two other accounts of his
A lawyer for Nwadavid did not respond to Fortune’s request for
Authorities declined to given the case is still pending
His sentencing is scheduled for September
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