By: Richard L. Smith
A Newark man was convicted of conspiring to commit wire fraud and wire fraud in connection with an online romance scam, U.S. Attorney Philip R. Sellinger announced Friday.
According to US Federal officials, Mahmoud Bowler, 40, of Newark, was convicted on April 13, 2023, of one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and four counts of wire fraud following a four-day trial before U.S. Circuit Court Judge Joseph A. Greenaway Jr., sitting by designation to hold a District Court within the Circuit.
According to documents filed in this case and the evidence presented at trial:
From February 2015 through June 2019, Bowler and a conspirator participated in an online romance scheme.
Bowler’s conspirator created a fraudulent profile on an online dating site and then pretended to have a romantic relationship with a woman living in Florida.
In the online profile, Bowler’s conspirator falsely represented that he, and a company he owned, had been awarded a multimillion-dollar oil contract.
After establishing a virtual romantic relationship with the victim, the conspirator repeatedly solicited alleged loans from the victim, claiming that he could not access his own accounts because a foreign government had frozen his assets.
From April 2018 to September 2018, the victim was directed to wire money to Bowler’s bank account on four separate occasions.
After receiving the funds, Bowler withdrew a portion of the funds in cash, sent money to other individuals in Ghana through a money remitter, and wired some of the money to family members in Ghana.
The conspiracy to commit wire fraud and the wire fraud counts each carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison.
The maximum fine for each count is $250,000. Sentencing is scheduled for Aug. 15, 2023