A Nigerian national and United States permanent resident, Emuobosan Emanuella Hall, 45, is now the subject of a federal arrest warrant after failing to report to prison to serve an eight-year sentence tied to a romance fraud scheme, exposing her to an additional 10-year jail term.
The US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Louisiana said that on April 14, 2026, US Magistrate Judge Donna Phillips Currault signed a criminal complaint and issued the warrant following Hall’s failure to surrender as ordered.
Hall had been sentenced in January 2026 but did not report to the Bureau of Prisons by March 25, 2026, as directed, and has since evaded custody.
Court filings show Hall pleaded guilty to conspiring to defraud mostly older women through a romance scam. Her co-defendant, Kenneth G. Akpieyi, was convicted after a four-day jury trial in July 2025 and later sentenced to 25 years in prison.
Evidence presented in court detailed how the conspirators posed as generals, philanthropists, or entrepreneurs living outside the United States, contacting victims through platforms such as Facebook and Instagram before moving conversations to encrypted services like WhatsApp. Victims were then persuaded to send money for fraudulent reasons, including charitable work or medical emergencies.
Prosecutors said Hall and Akpieyi operated a company, Le Beau Monde LLC, to facilitate the scheme, with Hall depositing victim funds into company accounts and transferring them to other institutions, including foreign banks. She admitted responsibility for $851,207 in losses, while Akpieyi was held responsible for more than $3.5 million.
GPS data from her monitoring device placed her last known location at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport on March 24, 2026, where the device stopped transmitting. Although she had provided her probation officer with flight details to Minnesota, airline records show she did not board that flight.
If convicted of failure to report, Hall faces up to 10 additional years in prison to be served consecutively to her existing sentence. “Our office will vigorously enforce the law, particularly when a defendant fails to report to prison to serve her sentence,” US Attorney David I. Courcelle said.
