FBI arrests 35-Year-Old man for posing as 49ers player to scam 26 women of ₦1.82 billion

• 35-year-old Daejon Labrayae Love is accused of fabricating an NFL career in an elaborate romance scam that involves at least 26 victims from whom he scammed $1.3 million.

• Prosecutors allege that he used false bank statements and rented luxury cars to curate a fake lifestyle on Instagram to convince the victims he met from dating apps.

• Court filings show that Love convinces the women to invest in a non-existent scheme that guarantees higher returns before running off with the funds and cutting all communications.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) have arrested a man who, for four years, ran an elaborate scam where he pretended to be a player of the San Francisco 49ers in the National Football League (NFL) to con 26 women out of $1.3 million.

Federal prosecutors in the US District of Oregon have filed federal charges against 35-year-old Daejon Labrayae Love for presenting himself online and in person as an undrafted wide receiver for the San Francisco 49ers and using the persona and a carefully curated luxury lifestyle to lure women he met through dating apps into both romantic relationships and fraudulent investment schemes.

The prosecutors accused Love of building an elaborate Instagram presence to support his false identity and fraudulent lifestyle. Among the posts on his page are photos of rented luxury cars, fake credit cards, and multiple pictures posing with the San Francisco 49ers sporting gears.

Love is alleged to have gone as far as manipulating Google's AI Overview feature and planting false information online as evidence of his fabricated NFL career should the victims attempt to conduct a Google search to verify his story. He also consistently blamed a recovery from injury for his lack of playing time.

Love is alleged to have started this scam in February 2022 until he was arrested in August 2026 alongside his 18-year-old accomplice, Taylor Jamie Chan, who posed as his personal financial advisor to make the scam more convincing.

Love and Chan were arrested by FBI agents on August 24 at the airport in Boise, Idaho, where authorities say they had travelled to meet new potential victims. They have both been charged with wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud, and remain in federal custody.

According to court filings, the tactic used by the accused is to seek out women and make them emotionally invested, after which he them proceed to use fake bank account statements and promises of huge investment returns to lure them part with money. There's no evidence of Love ever returning the funds he receives, and he's accused of moving on to new targets once his victims run out of money.

The financial records reviewed by prosecutors show that Love received at least 1.3 million dollars from 26 identified women, with the potential victims believed to be more. If convicted of the charges, Love is facing up to 20 years in prison.

The case has sparked reactions online, where observers have discussed the enduring popularity of romance scams, which continue to see women around the world fall victim to conmen using fraudulent wealth, rented luxury and flashy lifestyle to con victims of money.

Love's alleged crimes sparked comparisons to the convicted conman Simon Leviev, who conned multiple women he met on the dating app Tinder out of millions of dollars by charming them with lavish gifts and taking them on dinners in private jets before loaning huge sums of money from them and cutting off all communications. His con is the basis of the 2022 Netflix documentary 'The Tinder Swindler', where some of his victims shared their stories.