YOUTUBER ARRESTED FOR SCAMMING YOUNG FOLLOWERS
YOUTUBER ARRESTED FOR SCAMMING YOUNG FOLLOWERS

A 22-year-old is accused of orchestrating a $1.5 million fraud scheme by using her social media following to target victims. New Jersey native Kayla Massa has over 300,000 Instagram followers and 100,000 YouTube subscribers.

On Feb.

13, federal authorities in the state arrested and charged the influencer... following a complaint that found Massa guilty of illegally scamming over 45 of her followers and other businesses out of almost $2 million.

A recent Quartz investigation found that Massa would post photos of stacks of cash on her Instagram Stories... and caption them with things like, “If you got a bank account and you are interested in making legal money, (hit me up) ASAP.”.

Massa would then encourage people who responded to the post to drain their bank accounts... and give her their debit card number and ATM PIN, in an attempt to reassure them that she would protect their money.

Next, Massa would hide fake checks of stolen money by depositing them into her followers’ bank accounts.

Using the names of real businesses, and would withdraw the cash before the bank could flag it as suspicious.

By the time followers realized what was going on and discovered all of their money was gone, it was too late.

Authorities were able to link the fraudulent checks to specific stores and after checking security cameras.

Found Massa on film shopping and paying for items with the checks