A federal grand jury in New Orleans has indicted Emuobosan Emmanuella Hall, aged 46, of Atlanta, Georgia, for failing to report to the Bureau of Prisons to begin serving her sentence. The indictment was returned on 23 October 2026, United States Attorney David I. Courcelle announced.
Hall, a Nigerian citizen and permanent resident of the United States, was sentenced in January 2026 by United States District Judge Jane Triche Milazzo to 96 months in prison for her part in a romance scam. The judge allowed her to remain on bond and ordered her to report to her designated prison by 25 March 2026. She did not do so and remains at large. A warrant has been issued for her arrest.
According to a criminal complaint, Hall was first indicted in April 2024 on charges of conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering. She was arrested in Atlanta and released on bond. She later pleaded guilty. GPS data from her monitoring device showed her last known location as Hartsfield Jackson Atlanta International Airport on 24 March 2026, after which the device stopped transmitting. She had given her probation officer details of a flight to Minnesota, where she was due to serve her sentence, but airline records confirmed she did not board that flight.
Hall had admitted her role in a scheme that targeted mainly older women. Conspirators presented themselves as generals, philanthropists or entrepreneurs living outside the United States. They met victims on Facebook, Instagram and similar platforms, moved conversations to WhatsApp or other encrypted services, and built romantic relationships before asking for money for invented needs such as charitable work or medical costs for relatives. Hall and her codefendant, Kenneth G. Akpieyi of Marietta, Georgia, operated Le Beau Monde LLC to receive and move victim funds, including transfers to foreign banks. Hall accepted responsibility for losses of 851,207 dollars. Akpieyi was convicted after a four day jury trial in July 2025 and sentenced by Judge Milazzo to 25 years in prison. He was found responsible for losses exceeding 3.5 million dollars and is now serving his sentence.
United States Attorney Courcelle said: “Hall was convicted for defrauding our vulnerable, elderly citizens out of their retirement funds. Her flight from the law demonstrates her utter disregard of our judicial system. We will continue to pursue Hall, and any person who may be facilitating her failure to appear to serve her federal prison sentence.”
If convicted on the new charge, Hall faces a maximum of ten years in prison, to run consecutively to her existing sentence, a fine of up to 250,000 dollars, and up to three years of supervised release. She would also pay a mandatory assessment of 100 dollars. The case has been assigned to United States District Judge Nannette Jolivette Brown under Criminal Action No. 26 255 G.
By John James
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