Woman Pleads Guilty for Targeting Navy Federal Accounts & Defrauding Sailors

Emani Burton of Hampton, Va., will be sentenced in March 2022 for stealing funds from Navy Federal Credit Union member accounts and victimizing sailors to hand over the money, prosecutors said.

She agreed to plead guilty last month to one felony count of conspiracy to commit bank fraud, according to court documents.

Burton worked with a co-conspirator, not named in court filings, who posed as Navy Federal employees and contacted members to obtain the necessary information to gain access to their accounts without the members’ consent. Court documents did not say how many member accounts were accessed.

Prosecutors said Burton and the co-conspirator then targeted sailors on dating apps like Tinder by posing as females interested in a romantic relationship. Burton and the co-conspirator used the member accounts they previously accessed via phishing to transfer those funds to the targeted sailors’ accounts. The sailors did not know the transfers were illegitimate.

Burton and the co-conspirator convinced the sailors to withdraw the transferred funds and turn the money over to them. In at least three instances, Burton met the sailors at different locations, including at a Navy Federal branch in Hampton, to get the money from the sailors, court documents showed.

In one instance, however, Burton and the co-conspirator attempted to defraud a victim out of $16,550. Burton met the sailor at a gas station in Hampton to obtain $1,000 in cash and three money orders made payable to her.

When she deposited the funds in her Navy Federal account, however, they were flagged as fraudulent. After she was confronted by Navy Federal employees, Burton falsely claimed she had been a victim of a scam, prosecutors said.

Court documents showed that Burton and the co-conspirator fraudulently obtained more than $40,000 but less than $95,000.