Inside the Bizarre Romance Scams Using This Army General’s Identity
When four-star Gen. Stephen J. Townsend found himself in a financial bind while deployed overseas in 2019, he did what any top commander in the U.S. military would: get on Facebook to contact a 74-year-old widow he had never met before.
Townsend, a well-respected military commander who headed up the U.S. Army’s Africa Command (AFRICOM) until August, told the widow his “portfolio” had been held up by customs officials demanding large fees to release it. Could she help?
Such an overture would be immediately obvious as a so-called romance scam to most. But it apparently didn’t seem so far-fetched to the woman, a U.S. resident who is identified only as “N.W.” in a criminal complaint unsealed Friday in Salt Lake City federal court and obtained by The Daily Beast. Still, N.W. had questions—all of which “Townsend” was eager to explain away.