Move over Tinder Swindler — there’s a new man allegedly scamming women on dating apps, this time for more than $2 million.
On July 24, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California announced that a man from Whittier, California, was arrested on a 14-count federal indictment, accused of conning victims on dating apps like Bumble, Tinder, and Hinge.
The 39-year-old man, Christopher Earl Lloyd, allegedly used dating apps and websites to convince women that he was a wealthy individual who owned multiple properties, served as the vice president of a company called Planet 13 Holdings, and worked at an investment company called Landmark Associates.
With his fake roles, Lloyd allegedly persuaded victims to give him money and property in order to invest in opportunities that he’d tell them about. According to the Attorney’s Office’s official release, Lloyd “told his victims that he would invest their money, that they would receive regular returns on these investments, and that they could withdraw these investments at any time.”
After signing contracts with his victims, Lloyd would receive money from Cash App, Zelle, wire transfers, and cash payments. Instead of actually investing it, he allegedly used it on himself — even withdrawing $40,000 that one victim sent him to write a check at a Lexus car dealership.
With more than $2 million in damages incurred, Lloyd has been charged with 13 counts of wire fraud and one count of engaging in a monetary transaction in property derived from the fraud.
If he’s convicted, Lloyd would be sentenced to the statutory maximum sentence of 20 years in prison for each count of wire fraud, and up to ten years in prison for the monetary transaction charge.
Lloyd is the latest dating app scammer to make headlines following Shimon Hayut, better known as the Tinder Swindler, about whom Netflix made a documentary in 2022. Hayut posed as a the son of Israeli diamond magnate Lev Liviev on Tinder and scammed several women into giving him cash and credit cards by falsely telling them that his life was in danger.
