California Man Federally Charged In Alleged Dating-app Scheme

A California man was arrested connected a 14-count national indictment Thursday that alleges he utilized making love apps to con matches retired of millions of dollars by posing arsenic an investor, officials said.

Christopher Earl Lloyd, 39, from Orange County, is accused of executing nan strategy from April 2021 until February 2024, according to nan indictment, released Thursday by nan Department of Justice successful nan Central District of California.

The indictment accuses Lloyd of utilizing making love apps — like Tinder, Hinge and Bumble — to "to befriend and prosecute successful romanticist relationships pinch victims," whom he past lied to astir his finances and profession to get them to put their money pinch him. When they sent him cash, he utilized it for his "personal benefit," according to nan national indictment.

Lloyd told nan victims that he had precocious closed connected aggregate properties, that he had been a finance head for years, that he was vice president of a institution called 13 Holdings and that he worked for an finance institution called Landmark Holdings — nary of which was true, nan indictment alleges.

He allegedly convinced his victims that he was knowledgeable astir investments and encouraged them to nonstop them their money for him to invest, according to nan indictment.

The indictment alleges he promised his victims would spot "regular returns" connected nan money invested pinch him and that their investments were "insured up to a important amount." He besides told them they could retreat their costs astatine immoderate time, nan indictment says.

To legitimize nan process, Lloyd signed contracts that "specified nan investments that nan victims were to make" and created "a mendacious schedule of returns connected their investments," nan indictment alleges. His victims sent money to a number of slope accounts he owned via wire, Zelle, Cash App aliases by utilizing cash.

"Rather than utilizing nan victims' costs for investments, suspect Lloyd mostly spent it for his ain individual benefit," nan indictment says, including 1 2023 incident successful which he utilized $40,000 of his victims' money to constitute a cheque to a Lexus dealership successful Southern California.

The national indictment lists astatine slightest 5 victims who, connected aggregate occasions, wired Lloyd amounts that ranged from $15,500 to $110,000. In total, Lloyd collected much than $2 cardinal from his victims done nan scheme.

Lloyd was charged pinch 13 counts of ligament fraud and 1 count of engaging successful a monetary transaction successful spot derived from nan fraud, according to a release from nan United States Attorney's Office successful nan Central District of California.

He made an first quality astatine nan United States District Court successful Santa Ana connected Thursday day and remains successful national custody.

A lawyer representing Lloyd did not instantly respond to NBC News' petition for comment.

If he is convicted, Lloyd would look a statutory maximum condemnation of 20 years successful national situation for each of nan 13 ligament fraud counts and up to 10 years successful situation for nan monetary transaction count.

The FBI is investigating nan case.