We think of Wealth Managers as highly educated, intelligent people. But that preconceived image helps unethical con artists carry out apalling harm!

The “Wealth Manager Scam” is one of the most potent of all extortions taking place through on-line dating! Offenders stir the romantic brain chemistry of their victims with flowers, affection, and talk of love, while plying them for details about their investments.

A recent conviction!

ChristianMingle, Match.com and OurTime were used by a shrewd Houston couple, Ken Ejimofor Ezeah and Akunna Baiyina Ejiofor, to bilk women out of millions! Losses amounted to as much as $1,100,000 in one case and hundreds of thousands of dollars in several others.

Ezeah posed as Edward Peter Duffey, an Investment Manager with a thick British accent. He’d express concern that he had “inside information” that the SEC was investigating the firm that held the victim’s assets. He convinced them to transfer their holdings to his non-existing wealth management company.

Ejiofor, 31, admitted to setting up the fake profiles and acting as the “female voice” in the couple’s deceptions. At times she pretended to be Mary Jo White, the head of the SEC, and personal friend of Mr. Ezeah, confirming his story.

Reported yesterday in US News, Ejiofor was convicted of 18 counts of wire fraud, aggravated identity theft and conspiracy to commit wire fraud, by a federal jury in Oklahoma City.

Lessons Learned: Don’t send money to anyone you meet on a dating site!! Not now. Not ever…… NEVER!