FBI fraud case against fake 49ers player grows to 61 victims in $1.3M scheme
35 more women have come forward as alleged victims of Daejon Love and Taylor Chan, bringing the total to over 60 in a $1.3M wire fraud case.
FBI identifies 35 more alleged victims in fake 49ers player fraud
Thirty-five additional women have come forward as alleged victims of Daejon Love and Taylor Chan, according to abc7ny.com, bringing the total number of people defrauded in the case to more than 60. The FBI announced the development on Friday, saying the agency is still working to verify the new claims.
Portland FBI Special Agent in Charge Doug Olson said the scale of the fraud caught investigators off guard. "We were surprised how many people were victimised in such a short period of time and then to have that many more come forward," Olson said at a news conference. "It's a large volume for just a couple of subjects."
Olson added that he believes further victims have yet to come forward, and he encouraged anyone with information to contact the Portland FBI. "We don't want anyone to be fearful of coming forward — certainly not for fear of embarrassment or anything like that — because we want to help them and we want to make sure that this doesn't happen to anybody else," he said.
Fake personas, dating apps and AI-generated identities
The FBI opened its investigation on 30 September 2024, covering alleged conduct that spans from February 2022 to 24 August 2026, the date Love and Chan were arrested at Boise Airport in Idaho. Both men have been charged with wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud.
According to the criminal complaint, Love, 35, used social media and dating apps to construct false identities — among them a San Francisco 49ers player and a wealthy Swiss real estate investor — and persuaded women to transfer money to him. Chan, 18, is alleged to have posed as Love's financial adviser, helping to convince the women that their funds would be invested on their behalf.
The complaint states that the two men stole more than $1.3 million from 26 known victims across at least four states. Olson described the operation as highly deliberate. "The victims in this case were targeted precisely because they were trusting, responsible people who believed they were building genuine relationships and legitimate financial futures," he said. "They were deliberately manipulated through an extremely sophisticated scheme that blended fake personas, fabricated investment accounts, staged video calls and AI-reinforced false identities."
49ers persona central to establishing credibility
Olson said the fraud was tailored individually to each victim. Not every woman was presented with the NFL player persona, but Love regularly relied on the professional athlete character to underpin claims about his income. "He was either a player, former player, a player on injured reserve, and whatever name he was using, he'd put enough stuff into the media searches so it was the first thing that came up on people's page," Olson said. Multiple corroborating items would appear in search results, reinforcing whichever story Love was telling at the time.
"The sports thing was always a big part of it," Olson said, "because you have to have some source of initial income to be an investor."
A San Francisco 49ers team source told ESPN that the club had no knowledge of Love and had received no reports about him before the FBI made contact in August. Olson said the franchise was cooperative throughout. "This person was never an employee, never a player, not even ever in the NFL," he said. "They were able to help with a lot of that stuff."
Olson warned that the scheme could serve as a template for others. "Our concern is that this fraud could be replicated by other individuals that are out there victimising other people in similar schemes," he said.
Source: Google News MT — Crime (en)