Hajia 4 Real, Soicalite & MusicianGhanaian social media influencer and musician Mona Faiz Montrage, also known as Hajia4Real, has been sentenced by a US court to a year and one-day jail term for her involvement in a romance scam that targeted older, single American citizens.
The sentence was delivered in New York under Judge J. Paul Oetken on June 28, 2024, after Hajia4Real pleaded guilty to the charges.
The socialite, who has repeatedly claimed to be a self-employed entrepreneur, was first arrested in the United Kingdom on November 11, 2022, and was later extradited to the United States in May 2023 for prosecution.
She was slammed with six indictment charges for defrauding elderly single American men on dating sites, and operating a money laundering scheme as part of an enterprise that targeted business organizations.
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The false pretenses used to lure victims into sending money included payments for transporting gold to the US from overseas, resolving a fake FBI investigation, and assisting a nonexistent US Army officer in receiving funds from Afghanistan, totaling over $2 million in cash.
After pleading guilty to the court, Hajia4Real’s lawyers requested a three-month sentence, citing her status as a single mother whose presence is crucial to her child’s well-being. However, the US Attorney’s Office argued for a 37-month sentence, stating that it would be unfair to people who have been implicated in similar crimes.
The 37-month sentence was reduced to one year and a day by the Judge, who chose to be liberal towards the accused, who revealed that the father of her daughter, whom she met in 2015 and fell in love with, introduced her to internet fraud. She claimed she was initially unaware of his criminal activities, but he later drew her into the same fraudulent schemes.
According to reports, Hajia4Real’s sentence does not include ICE(Immigration and Customs Enforcement) detention, which implies that she would be deported to Ghana immediately after serving her sentence fully.
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