Ghanaian socialite Mona Faiz Montrage is likely to face up to 20 years in jail if she’s successfully convicted for a $2 million romance scam.
Mona 4Reall or Hajia4Reall as she’s popularly known was extradited to the United States from the United Kingdom over her alleged involvement in the scam targeting older, single Americans.
The 30-year-old model who appeared in a Manhattan federal court on Monday, May 15 for her alleged involvement in ‘sakawa’ pleaded not guilty to the charges.
She was subsequently granted bail for a $500,000 bond with GPS tracking via an ankle monitor and will be released on home detention to her aunt’s New Jersey residence in the coming days.
Damian Williams, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and Michael J. Driscoll, the Assistant Director in Charge of the New York Field Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), announced the unsealing of a six-count Indictment charging Hajia4Real for her role in a series of romance schemes and for laundering the proceeds of those schemes.
Montrage — who had around 3.4 million Instagram followers of her page Hajia4Reall at one point — from at least 2013 through 2019 was allegedly involved with a group of con artists from West Africa who assumed fake identities to trick people into thinking they were in relationships with them using emails, texts and social media messages.
The social media influencer — whose Instagram account was among the top 10 most followed in Ghana –was arrested on November 10, 2022, in the UK for the alleged conspiracy and brought to the US last Friday.
The prosecutors informed the court that “Montrage received money from several victims of romance frauds whom members of the Enterprise tricked into sending money. Among the false pretences used to induce victims to send money to Montrage were (i) payments to transport gold to the United States from overseas; (ii) payments to resolve a fake FBI unemployment investigation; and (iii) payments to assist a fake United States army officer in receiving funds from Afghanistan.”
The court said in one incident with her victims she used her real name and spoke to the victim several times by phone.
“Montrage later sent the victim a tribal marriage certificate purporting to show that Montrage and the victim had been married in Ghana.”
“The victim sent Montrage approximately 82 wire transfers totalling approximately $89,000 to purportedly help with costs associated with Montrage’s father’s farm in Ghana.”
It added that “In total, Montrage controlled bank accounts that received over $2 million in fraudulent funds from the Enterprise.”
The Ghanaian musician has been charged with one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, one count of wire fraud, one count of money laundering conspiracy, and one count of money laundering, each of which carry a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.
She is also charged with one count of receipt of stolen money, which carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison, and one count of conspiracy to receive stolen money, which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison.
