Convicted Romance Scammer Indicted for Failing to Report to Federal Prison: Sentenced to 96 Months, She Vanished at Atlanta Airport the Day Before Reporting; FBI Offers $5,000 Reward
The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Louisiana announced that a convicted romance scammer has been indicted for failure to report to the Bureau of Prisons to serve her sentence. A federal grand jury indicted her on October 23, 2026, and she is currently at large, with a warrant issued for her arrest.
The defendant, Emuobosan Emmanuella Hall, age 46, of Atlanta, Georgia, is a citizen of Nigeria and a U.S. permanent resident. She had been sentenced to eight years in prison by U.S. District Judge Jane Triche Milazzo for her role in a romance scam.
According to court documents, Hall was indicted in April 2024 by a federal grand jury in New Orleans for conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering. She was arrested in Atlanta, Georgia, and granted bond, and subsequently pleaded guilty. In January 2026, Judge Milazzo sentenced her to 96 months in prison, permitted her to remain on bond, and ordered her to report to her designated Bureau of Prisons institution by March 25, 2026.
Hall did not report as ordered. According to GPS data from her monitoring device, her last known location was Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport on March 24, 2026, where the device ceased operating. She had provided her probation officer with flight information to Minnesota, where she was designated to serve her sentence; according to airline records, she did not board that flight.
In the underlying scheme, Hall pleaded guilty to conspiring to defraud mostly older women in a romance scam. Conspirators posed as generals, philanthropists or entrepreneurs living outside the United States, met victims on Facebook, Instagram and similar platforms, and moved conversations to WhatsApp or another encrypted platform before asking for money for fraudulent reasons such as charitable work or sick family members. Hall admitted responsibility for $851,207 in victim losses. She and codefendant Kenneth G. Akpieyi organized a company, Le Beau Monde LLC, used in furtherance of the scam; Akpieyi was convicted at trial and sentenced to 25 years in prison.
U.S. Attorney David I. Courcelle said Hall was convicted of defrauding vulnerable, elderly citizens out of their retirement funds, and that her flight from the law shows utter disregard for the judicial system. If convicted of the new charge, Hall faces a maximum of ten years in prison to be served consecutively to her prior sentence, a fine of up to $250,000, and a term of supervised release of up to three years. The FBI is offering a $5,000 reward leading to her arrest; anyone with information on her location should call 1-800-CALL-FBI or reach out through the FBI online tips site. The indictment is merely an allegation, and her guilt must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.
Source: GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta 国际机场航站楼内部——被告最后出现的已知地点。Harrison Keely 摄，CC BY 4.0，经 Wikimedia Commons。 / Inside a terminal at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, the defendant's last known location. Photo by Harrison Keely, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
