Couple Pleads Guilty in International Romance Fraud Targeting Elderly Victims in New Jersey

Felix Clark and Esther Amppiaw admitted roles in a scheme that funneled over $500,000 from elderly individuals, exploiting online relationships and laundering funds through unlicensed channels.

A Texas man and his romantic partner have pleaded guilty in federal court to charges stemming from a romance fraud scheme that defrauded elderly victims—among them at least one from New Jersey—out of hundreds of thousands of dollars, U.S. Attorney Alina Habba announced.

Felix Clark, 36, of Keller, Texas—who operated under aliases including “Joseph Moore” and “Stanley Smith”—pleaded guilty on May 6, 2025, to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and wire fraud, before Chief U.S. District Judge Renée Marie Bumb in Camden. His sentencing is scheduled for September 10, 2025.

Clark’s partner, Esther Amppiaw, 33, also of Keller, pleaded guilty on May 23, 2025, to a charge of operating an unlicensed money transmitter business. She is set to be sentenced on September 23, 2025.

According to court records and statements made during the plea hearings, from June to September 2022, Clark operated from Delray Beach, Florida, while participating in a scheme organized with a co-conspirator in Ghana. Individuals posing as potential romantic partners contacted elderly victims—many recently widowed—through online dating platforms, professing affection and intentions to marry. Victims were deceived into sending money under false pretenses, including the claim that large quantities of gold in Ghana required payment of taxes or fees for access.

Victims sent substantial funds to Clark and associates, including Amppiaw, who used personal and fictitious financial accounts to receive and forward the money—some of it going to recipients in New Jersey and abroad.

Clark admitted to being directly responsible for $501,071 in victim losses and acknowledged obstructing justice by submitting a falsified death certificate and funeral notice in an attempt to reclaim a lawfully seized passport.

Amppiaw admitted that between January 2022 and June 2023, while residing in Florida, she received and transmitted over $317,000 from individuals she did not personally know. She transferred the majority of those funds to others domestically and internationally, later acknowledging they were proceeds of fraudulent activity.

Each of the wire fraud counts to which Clark pleaded guilty carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison, and the court may impose consecutive sentences. Amppiaw faces up to five years in prison for operating an unlicensed money transmission business. Both individuals also face substantial fines and the potential for supervised release following any prison terms.

The investigation was conducted by the FBI’s Philadelphia Division, South Jersey Resident Agency, under the direction of Special Agent in Charge Wayne A. Jacobs, and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service’s Philadelphia Division, led by Inspector in Charge Christopher Nielsen.

The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Elisa T. Wiygul of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Camden.