A woman used online dating apps to lure at least four older men to meet her in person, then drugged them with sedatives and stole hundreds of thousands of dollars in a “sinister” romance scheme, FBI officials in Las Vegas said on Friday.
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Three of the men died, authorities said, and she has been charged in one of their deaths.
Aurora Phelps, 43, who is in custody in Mexico, faces 21 counts including wire fraud, identity theft and one count of kidnapping resulting in death, Sue Fahami, the acting United States attorney for the District of Nevada, said at a news conference.
“This is a romance scam on steroids,” said Spencer Evans, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Las Vegas division. One of the four victims, who were targeted in 2021 and 2022, awoke from a coma after Phelps gave him prescription sedatives over the course of a week, Evans added.
In one instance Phelps is alleged to have kidnapped a victim by heavily sedating him and taking him across the US-Mexico border in a wheelchair and then to a Mexico City hotel room, where he was later found dead.
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After incapacitating her victims, Evans said, Phelps stole their cars, withdrew money from their bank accounts, used their credit cards to purchase luxury items and gold and even tried to access social security and retirement accounts.