A man from California was arrested in a federal accusation of 14 charges on Thursday that alleges that he used appointment applications for the coincidences of millions of dollars posing as an investor, authorities said.
Christopher Earl Lloyd, 39, from Orange County, is accused of executing the scheme from April 2021 to February 2024, according to the accusation, published Thursday by the Department of Justice in the Central District of California.
The accusation accuses Lloyd of using appointment applications, such as Tinder, Bisho and Bumble, “Making friends and participating in romantic relationships with the victims,” who lied to his finances and his career to invest his money with him. When they sent him cash, he used it for his “personal benefit,” according to the federal accusation.
Lloyd told the victims that he had recently closed in multiple properties, that he had been Finance Manager for years, that he was vice president of a company called 13 Holdings and worked for an investment company called Landmark Holdings, none of which was true, the accusation alleges.
He convinced his victims that he knew the investments and encouraged them to send his money to invest, according to the accusation.
The accusation alleges that he promised that his victims would see “regular yields” in the money invested with him and that his investments were “secured to a significant amount.” He also told them that they could withdraw their funds at any time, says the accusation.
To legitimize the process, Lloyd signed contracts that “specified the investments that the victims had to do” and created “a false calendar of returns from their investments,” the accusation alleges. His victims sent money to a series of bank accounts that he owned through the Wire, Zelle and Cash application or through cash, he says.
“Instead of using the funds of the victims for investments, the defendant Lloyd spent it largely for his own personal benefit,” says the accusation, including a 2023 incident in which he used $ 40,000 of his victims’ money to write a check to a Lexus dealer in southern California.
The federal accusation lists at least five victims that says, on multiple occasions, the amounts of connected Lloyd that ranged between $ 15,500 and $ 110,000. In total, Lloyd raised more than $ 2 million of his victims through the scheme, he says.
Lloyd was accused of 13 positions of electronic fraud and a position to participate in a monetary transaction in property derived from fraud, said the United States prosecutor’s office in a statement.
He made an initial appearance in the United States District Court in Santa Ana on Thursday afternoon and remains in federal custody.
A lawyer who represents Lloyd did not immediately respond to a request for comments.
If he is convicted, Lloyd would face a maximum legal sentence of 20 years in a federal prison for each of the 13 electronic fraud counts and up to 10 years in prison for the count of monetary transactions.
The FBI is investigating.
