Philippines-based American pleads guilty to running expansive fraud scheme targeting US servicemembers

A 45-year-old U.S. citizen pleaded guilty to running a widespread identity theft and fraud scheme that defrauded thousands of U.S. servicemembers and veterans while living in the Philippines, the Justice Department said Tuesday.

Robert Wayne Boling Jr. exploited stolen personally identifiable information (PII) to compromise victims’ bank accounts and steal their money and veterans’ benefits during a five-year period ending in July 2019, according to court records. He pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering and faces up to 40 years in prison upon sentencing. 

“Those who courageously served our nation deserve our gratitude and protection — not to become targets for criminals seeking to profit from their sacrifice,” A. Tysen Duva, assistant attorney general of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, said in a statement. “This defendant betrayed our country by exploiting personal information belonging to thousands of military-affiliated individuals, including elderly and disabled veterans, in a calculated scheme to steal from those who have given so much.”

Boling was arrested in May in Los Angeles after he was deported by the Philippines to the United States to face charges related to the scheme, officials said.

He was originally indicted in July 2019 along with four co-conspirators, and a warrant issued for his arrest in October 2022. Two of Bolling’s co-conspirators — Frederick Brown and Trorice Crawford — previously pleaded guilty and were sentenced to 151 months and 46 months in prison in 2021 and 2020, respectively. Other alleged co-conspirators Jongmin Seok and Allan Albert Kerr remain at large.

Prosecutors describe Boling as the “principal orchestrator of the scheme.” He received PII of thousands of military-affiliated individuals from Brown, who worked as a contractor medical records administrator for the U.S. Army in South Korea from 2010 to 2015, officials said. 

Boling used the sensitive data to compromise various accounts belonging to U.S. servicemembers and veterans. 

Officials said the crew also worked with dozens of money mules in the United States who provided bank accounts to deposit stolen funds into and sent a portion of the funds to the Philippines. 

Prosecutors said they’ve worked for years to bring Boling to the United States to face charges. He was raised in South Korea as a U.S. military dependent and lived in Angeles City, Philippines, according to the indictment.

“This defendant and his fellow fraudsters served themselves by stealing from those who selflessly serve our country,” Justin R. Simmons, U.S. attorney for the Western District of Texas, said in a statement. “We will always work tirelessly to fully prosecute those who prey on others in this manner, especially when the victims of those crimes are servicemembers.”