Former Department of Defense Employee Pleads Guilty to Laundering Millions of Dollars for Overseas Scammers

PHILADELPHIA - United States Attorney David Metcalf announced that Samuel D. Marcus, 33, of Oreland, Pennsylvania, entered a plea of guilty before United States District Judge Joel H. Slomsky yesterday to one count of concealment money laundering.

The defendant was charged by indictment in February, arising from his role as a money mule for a group of Nigeria-based scammers, in which he received, concealed, and laundered millions of dollars in fraud proceeds.

As detailed in court filings and admitted to by the defendant, after falling victim to a romance fraud scheme in late 2022 and early 2023, Marcus then knowingly served as a money mule for the same group of fraudsters that initially victimized him.

From approximately July 2023 to December 2025, while employed as a Logistics Specialist with the U.S. Department of Defense, Marcus was in direct and regular contact with this group of Nigeria-based fraudsters, who operated under the aliases "Rachel Jude" and "Ned McMurray," among others. These fraudsters engaged in a variety of wire fraud schemes that targeted victims based in the United States, including romance fraud, cyber fraud, tax fraud, financing fraud, and business email compromise schemes, to which victims lost millions of dollars.

The fraudsters employed a network of money mules in the United States to help launder the fraud proceeds, and instructed victims to transfer funds to financial accounts opened and operated by various money mules, including Marcus.

At the direction of fraudsters, Marcus and other money mules conducted a series of rapid financial transactions to convert fraud victim funds deposited into their accounts into cryptocurrency and to move those funds into foreign accounts. Marcus personally deposited and transferred millions of dollars of fraudulently obtained money into and through his personal and business accounts, while fully aware that "Rachel Jude" and "Ned McMurray" were scammers who carried out sophisticated fraud schemes.

Marcus also affirmatively misled and lied to his financial institutions and law enforcement officers about the laundered funds, to include sending fraudulent invoices to make the transactions appear legitimate. In fact, Marcus continued to work as a money mule for the fraudsters after being informed by FBI agents that the money passing through his accounts had been stolen from other people and that his monetary transfers were consistent with money laundering.

The defendant is scheduled to be sentenced on October 16 and faces a maximum possible term of 20 years in prison, three years of supervised release, and a $250,000 fine.

This case was investigated by FBI Philadelphia's Fort Washington Resident Agency, with assistance from Homeland Security Investigations and the Department of Defense Office of Inspector General's Defense Criminal Investigative Service. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Samuel S. Dalke.