Federal prosecutors say a man spent years selling women on a simple story: he was a San Francisco 49ers player with a private contract, a signing bonus and a locker-room life that justified the luxury they saw on his phone. They say the roster spot was fiction, the helmet was bought, and the money — more than $1.3 million from at least 26 women — never went into any investment.
Daejon Labrayae Love, 35, and Taylor Jamie Chan, 18, were charged by criminal complaint in the District of Oregon with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and wire fraud. The complaint, filed Aug. 17, alleges the scheme ran from February 2022 until their arrests Aug. 24 at Boise Airport, where the FBI says Love had gone to meet new targets and Chan had flown in from California to join him. Both men remain presumed innocent. An initial appearance was set for Thursday in Boise.
According to an FBI affidavit, Love met most of the women on Tinder, Bumble, Hinge and Facebook Dating, then folded football into the romance. He told some he was a 49ers wide receiver. He told others he had signed a “private contract,” collected a signing bonus, worked out with the team and sat in team meetings. In videos recovered from his iCloud accounts, investigators say he put it more bluntly: he went to every home game, expected to travel for the playoffs, had already taken his signing bonus and trained with the club.
The costume was physical, not just verbal. Court records say Love wore 49ers clothing and gear in person and on camera, including what agents describe as a replica 49ers helmet. One woman told investigators he showed up to their first meeting in a 49ers jersey. Another said he kept a 49ers helmet in his car and claimed to be a wide receiver. A third said he told her he was related to Green Bay Packers quarterback Jordan Love — a name Love himself used as an alias, along with Jon Love, Daejon Love and Avril Lyto Love. Investigators say he spent more than $1,160 at Green Gridiron, a vendor that sells custom football helmets.
He also performed the part on video. The affidavit describes a clip in which Love appears to sign a 49ers employment contract while wearing heavy jewelry and saying he would play wide receiver. Other photos and videos from his cloud accounts show him in 49ers clothing and at least one helmet, including footage in which he appears to practice in team gear. Agents identified three videos, apparently shot in January 2023 — two of him in a 49ers jacket, one a tour of a residence he presented as his own — that they say he shared about 185 times, including with numerous victims.
Prosecutors say the social media layer did as much work as the helmet. Love maintained accounts on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook and LinkedIn that mixed his own 49ers-branded images with other people’s content. Investigators say they found screen-recorded videos on his accounts that depict legitimate NFL players, taken from those players’ pages, sometimes with the original poster’s information stripped off. Love presented the clips as his own, the affidavit says, to convince women he belonged on a roster. He also claimed offseason workouts and friendships with current and former players, including Tyreek Hill, Antonio Brown and John Brown, and said those connections led to tryout invitations.
The campaign leaked into search results. A LinkedIn profile under his name listed him as a “Receiver at National Football League (NFL)” in the South Santa Clara Valley. By January 2026, agents who googled “Daejon Love 49ers” found results that sometimes treated him as a real player, including links toward the team’s roster pages and a TikTok that had drawn tens of thousands of views. The affidavit says search engines and artificial intelligence occasionally repeated the fiction because Love had seeded it so widely. Some accounts were later deactivated after victim complaints; agents say he simply opened new ones under new names.
The 49ers and the NFL closed the question when investigators asked directly. Representatives of both organizations confirmed Love has never been employed by the team or the league. Financial records cited in the case show no payroll or other deposits from the 49ers or any NFL club. Agents say they found no identifiable legitimate income at all.
With other women, Love used a second persona — a wealthy Swiss real estate investor — but the charging papers treat the 49ers identity as the centerpiece of the brand: a public, searchable, jersey-and-helmet story that made the romance and the money requests feel like access to an NFL life.
The affidavit describes a two-man play. Love supplied the relationship and the 49ers mystique. Chan posed as his financial adviser. Together they pitched fictitious “expedited accounts” and flashed doctored balances — including Pocket Option trading screens and fake bank totals — on phones and three-way FaceTime calls. Love told women he wanted to build wealth and a future with them. When they lacked cash, he encouraged personal loans and promised fast repayment. Victims sent money by Apple Pay, Zelle, Cash App, Venmo, Western Union, cashier’s checks and cash. Then, prosecutors say, the messages stopped.
None of the interviewed victims reported getting their money back, a return on the “investment,” or real account paperwork. Financial records show Love and Chan received about $1.3 million. An FBI tally of accounts tied to Love listed roughly $1.38 million in inflows from January 2021 through June 2025. The FBI says 26 women have been identified in Oregon, Washington, Idaho and California and believes there are more. Individual losses described in the affidavit range from several thousand dollars to tens of thousands; one woman is described as losing about $87,500. At least one obtained a restraining order. Another was warned by a prior victim.
Agents say Love spent the proceeds on travel, designer goods, cars, food and the props that kept the 49ers image intact. From mid-July through the day of the arrest, they say he moved through New Mexico, California, Oregon, Nevada, Utah and Idaho.
The case ahead
U.S. Attorney Scott E. Bradford’s office is prosecuting the case with Assistant U.S. Attorneys Bryan Chinwuba and Chris Cardani. The FBI led the investigation. The charged statutes, 18 U.S.C. § 1349 and § 1343, carry significant potential prison time if the men are convicted, plus possible restitution. No indictment or plea has been announced.
A complaint is only an accusation. Love and Chan have not yet tested the government’s evidence in court. Victim accounts in an affidavit are one-sided by nature, and dollar figures can shift as more people come forward.
The NFL piece of the allegation is unusually concrete: a jersey at a first date, a helmet in a car, practice-style videos, a staged contract signing, purchased custom headgear, lifted player footage, a LinkedIn title that said “Receiver,” and a flat denial from the 49ers and the league. That is the story prosecutors say Love used to walk women from a dating-app match to a wire transfer. The FBI asked anyone with information to contact tips.fbi.gov or 1-800-CALL-FBI.
