Is this a crime?
I feel like if someone is this dumb, they deserved to be scammed.
Case in point, a Houston man appeared in court overnight accused of posing as recording artist Bruno Mars on Instagram to strike up a romance with a woman and coax her out of $100,000.
Chinwendu Azuonwu was charged with third-degree felony money laundering last month but was taken into custody this week.
According to his charging documents, Azuonwu is connected to a scheme that happened between September and October 2018 involving a 63-year-old north Texas woman who told police she created an Instagram profile in search of companionship.
She told investigators a person pretending to be Bruno Mars reached out to her and made her believe that he was interested in pursuing a meaningful relationship.
Documents state the woman fell in love with the Mars account and at the time, she believed him to be the real singer because he had sent her multiple texts and photos of the artist while he was on tour. She also told investigators that he wanted to quit the tour to be with her.
The $100k hasn’t been found.
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