According to federal investigators, a California man pled guilty on Monday to stealing up to $1.5 million from nearly 20 people while posing as a Navy SEAL.
For the internet schemes, Ze’Shawn Stanley Campbell, 35, of Irvine, California, agreed to one count of wire fraud and one count of money laundering.
Campbell acquired the trust of ten people and nine corporations between April 2014 and April 2020 by claiming to have served as a Navy SEAL in Iraq and Afghanistan. He then allegedly duped them into paying his own bills and purchasing him expensive items.
“To enhance his purported creditworthiness in their eyes, he told them lies, such as falsely claiming that he had millions of dollars and operated successful businesses, including McDonald’s franchises, a security company, and a chain of gyms in Texas,” according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California.
The romance scammer also falsely claimed to his victims that he was a rich real estate and Bitcoin investor.
In one case, one of Campbell’s victims gave him a check for $61,452 after being persuaded that it would be used to invest in Bitcoin. Instead, the impostor SEAL used the funds to make payments on a BMW and a Mercedes-Benz that he had leased in the identity of another victim.
While Campbell’s money laundering operation is extreme, it is not the first — and most likely will not be the last — instance that someone has impersonated a Navy SEAL for financial benefit.
Last year, a Pennsylvania man was sentenced to 40 months in jail for impersonating a SEAL and a former prisoner of war in order to steal Veterans Affairs benefits.
According to a previous news release, Campbell was detained in March 2021 at the Dallas Fort Worth Overseas Airport after arriving on an international aircraft. In an email to USA TODAY, his counsel stated that the US Attorney’s Office “gave a ‘cherry-picked interpretation’ of the case.”
He will be sentenced on Jan. 9 at a hearing and faces up to 30 years in federal prison. According to the plea bargain, the fraudster may face a total of $500,000 in fines and “or double the gross gain or gross loss resulting from the offense, whichever is greater.”
