Love, Oil, and $44,000: NJ Man Goes to Prison For Online Romance Scam

A man from Newark is headed to prison in connection to an online romance scam.

Back in April, 40-year-old Mahmoud Bowler was convicted on one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and four counts of wire fraud following a four-day trial.

On Thursday, he was sentenced to 27 months behind bars.

Federal authorities, 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 strike up 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 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.

In the middle of 2018, the victim was told to wire money to Bowler’s bank account on four separate occasions.

After receiving the funds, Bowler withdrew a portion in cash, sent money to other individuals in Ghana through a money remitter, and wired some of the money to family members who were also in Ghana.

Once out of prison, Bowler will be under three years of supervised release. He was also ordered to pay restitution of $44,821.