Dada Joe Remix pleads guilty in US to $4.4 million romance scam

Ghanaian national Joseph Kwadwo Badu Boateng, widely known as Dada Joe Remix, has pleaded guilty in a US federal court in Tucson, Arizona to conspiracy to commit wire fraud — admitting his role in a decade-long romance and inheritance fraud scheme that defrauded at least 18 elderly Americans of approximately $4.4 million. The guilty plea was confirmed in an official statement released by the US Attorney's Office for the District of Arizona on June 30, 2026. Boateng and his co-conspirators ran the scheme from 2013 through March 2023, posing as romantic partners on online dating sites, through text messages and other electronic communications to gain the trust of elderly victims across Arizona and the United States. They also falsely claimed to have received an inheritance of gold and jewels — telling victims that taxes and fees were required to release the assets, before pocketing the payments. Individual victim losses ranged from $12,000 to $1.5 million. Boateng was arrested in Ghana on an extradition warrant on May 27, 2025, extradited to the United States the following month and has remained in federal custody since. Under his plea agreement he has agreed to pay $4.4 million in restitution to victims. He will be sentenced on September 8, 2026 before US District Judge Angela M. Martinez. The investigation was led by the FBI Phoenix Division's Sierra Vista office in close cooperation with the FBI Legal Attaché in Accra, Ghana's Economic and Organised Crime Office, the Ghana Police Service INTERPOL unit and the Office of the Attorney General of Ghana.