California man federally charged in alleged dating-app scheme
Christopher Earl Lloyd, 39, from Orange County, is accused of executing the scheme from April 2021 until February 2024, according to the indictment, released Thursday by the Department of Justice in the Central District of California.
The indictment accuses Lloyd of using dating apps — like Tinder, Hinge and Bumble — to "to befriend and engage in romantic relationships with victims," whom he then lied to about his finances and career to get them to invest their money with him. When they sent him cash, he used it for his "personal benefit," according to the federal indictment.
Lloyd told the victims that he had recently closed on multiple properties, that he had been a finance manager for years, that he was vice president of a company called 13 Holdings and that he worked for an investment company called Landmark Holdings — none of which was true, the indictment alleges.
He allegedly convinced his victims that he was knowledgeable about investments and encouraged them to send them their money for him to invest, according to the indictment.
The indictment alleges he promised his victims would see "regular returns" on the money invested with him and that their investments were "insured up to a significant amount." He also told them they could withdraw their funds at any time, the indictment says.
To legitimize the process, Lloyd signed contracts that "specified the investments that the victims were to make" and created "a false schedule of returns on their investments," the indictment alleges. His victims sent money to a number of bank accounts he owned via wire, Zelle, Cash App or by using cash.
"Rather than using the victims' funds for investments, defendant Lloyd largely spent it for his own personal benefit," the indictment says, including one 2023 incident in which he used $40,000 of his victims' money to write a check to a Lexus dealership in Southern California.
The federal indictment lists at least five victims who, on multiple occasions, wired Lloyd amounts that ranged from $15,500 to $110,000. In total, Lloyd collected more than $2 million from his victims through the scheme.
Lloyd was charged with 13 counts of wire fraud and one count of engaging in a monetary transaction in property derived from the fraud, according to a release from the United States Attorney's Office in the Central District of California.
He made an initial appearance at the United States District Court in Santa Ana on Thursday afternoon and remains in federal custody.
A lawyer representing Lloyd did not immediately respond to NBC News' request for comment.
If he is convicted, Lloyd would face a statutory maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison for each of the 13 wire fraud counts and up to 10 years in prison for the monetary transaction count.
The FBI is investigating the case.
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