Tinder, HB 249, Drug Drones

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Looking for Love, Finding Federal Charges

If dating apps weren’t already bleak enough, Ohio has now delivered a fresh reminder that sometimes “hey beautiful” is less a pickup line and more the opening act of a felony.

Two Ohio men have now been sentenced or pleaded guilty in separate romance-fraud schemes that drained millions from victims across the country, many of them elderly, grieving, or simply lonely enough to believe the person on the other side of the screen actually meant it when they said, “I can’t wait to build a life with you.”

Edward Amankwah, a 45-year-old from Westerville, pleaded guilty to conspiring to launder nearly $4.3 million through online romance scams. According to federal prosecutors, he and his co-conspirators created fake dating profiles, built emotional relationships with victims, and then started asking for money. In total, the broader group laundered nearly $12 million. Because apparently catfishing is no longer just about fake abs and old photos. Now it comes with international wire transfers.

The stories from the victims are brutal. One person sent $131,400 to someone pretending to be a military member who needed money to retire early. Another transferred $70,000 to a supposed mine owner in China to help with operating expenses. Which is a sentence that should raise alarms immediately, but that is the thing about scams like this. They do not work because people are stupid. They work because people are emotionally invested, and by the time the story stops making sense, the damage is already done.

Amankwah has agreed to pay about $4.9 million in restitution and faces up to 20 years in prison.

Then there is Richard Opoku Agyemang, a 41-year-old Cincinnati man who was sentenced in March to 41 months in prison for his role in a separate romance scam that caused more than $2 million in losses. Prosecutors said victims were tricked through fake profiles using stolen photos and false identities, then manipulated into sending money for made-up emergencies like medical bills. Agyemang laundered the proceeds through accounts he controlled, sending money across the U.S. and overseas.

The victims in that case were reportedly elderly or recently bereaved. Some maxed out credit cards. Some sold homes and cars. Some drained 401(k)s and life insurance policies. Which takes this story from “internet scam” to something much uglier: a business model built around identifying people at their most vulnerable and treating their trust like an ATM.

Agyemang was also ordered to pay nearly $1.4 million in restitution to identified victims, plus more than $20,000 to the Small Business Administration for fraudulently obtaining COVID relief funds. So yes, he allegedly folded pandemic loan fraud into a romance scam, just in case the résumé needed another line item.

There is something especially grim about these cases because they do not just steal money. They steal time, trust, and whatever fragile hope someone had left that another person might actually care about them. That is the real damage. The money matters. But so does the humiliation, the isolation, and the fact that many victims now have to live with the memory of being emotionally dismantled by someone who never existed in the first place.

Modern dating is hard enough without having to wonder whether the love of your life is actually a money-laundering operation in Westerville.

Scarlet Letter Trivia

Question: What is the most Popular Dating App in Ohio

A. Hinge
B. Bumble
C. Christian Mingle
D. Tinder

Ohio House Passes Bill Targeting Public Drag Performances

The Ohio House has passed House Bill 249, legislation that would ban certain drag performances from taking place in public and open the door to misdemeanor and felony charges tied to performances in front of minors. The bill now heads to the Ohio Senate, where lawmakers are devoting more time to policing gender expression than addressing the everyday costs that are actually squeezing most Ohioans.

Supporters insist the bill is about protecting children from obscene performances. That is the sales pitch. The actual language is broader and far murkier. HB 249 would prohibit “adult cabaret performances” outside adult cabarets, then expands that definition to include performers who present a gender identity different from their sex assigned at birth using clothing, makeup, prosthetics, imitation body parts, or other physical markers.

The legislation lumps drag performers in with topless dancers, strippers, go-go dancers, and exotic dancers, while carving out an exception for legitimate film, theater, or artistic performances that are not obscene or harmful to juveniles. Which sounds reassuring until you remember vague carve-outs are usually where panic, confusion, and selective enforcement go to thrive.

That uncertainty is the point critics keep hammering. Not because the bill clearly defines every possible violation, but because it does not. It leaves performers, venues, businesses, and community groups trying to guess where the line is, who gets targeted, and whether hosting anything remotely gender-nonconforming is worth the legal risk. The punishment ranges from a first-degree misdemeanor if a performance happens in front of a juvenile, to felony charges if it is deemed obscene. That is a lot of criminal exposure built on language that still seems designed to make people squint.

Democrats said exactly what this looks like: another culture war bill dressed up as child protection. Rep. Dontavius Jarrells called it an attack on transgender and gender-nonconforming people. Rep. Beryl Brown Piccolantonio said it does nothing to make Ohio safer, but could absolutely cost the state money, chill economic activity, and scare already vulnerable people further into the shadows. Even beyond the civil rights concerns, there is the practical issue that businesses and event organizers may simply decide Ohio is not worth the hassle.

And that is before the lawsuits start. Similar laws in other states have already been blocked in court as unconstitutional restrictions on free speech and expression. So if this bill becomes law, Ohio could be spending taxpayer money defending legislation that was shaky from the start. House Speaker Matt Huffman says the bill is constitutional, though he also admitted it will almost certainly end up in court. Which is a fun way of saying: we know this will be expensive and messy, but onward.

At its core, this bill is not really about obscenity. Ohio already has laws dealing with obscenity. This is about who gets to exist comfortably in public, who gets labeled dangerous for how they dress, and which performances lawmakers find acceptable when children are nearby. And for a legislature that keeps insisting it is focused on serious issues, it is spending a remarkable amount of time worrying about drag queens.

Ohio’s Prison Drug Pipeline Came With Drones, Dead Birds, and DoorDash Energy

Turns out the future of crime in Ohio is not particularly elegant. It is a guy in the woods with a Facebook Marketplace drone, a bag of fentanyl, and just enough confidence to believe he had invented prison DoorDash.

That is essentially what happened in Ohio in 2021, when Cory Sutphin joined a drug-smuggling ring that used drones to deliver contraband directly into state prisons. Cell phones, fentanyl, meth, Suboxone, pills, all of it flown over prison walls and dropped into recreation yards, onto rooftops, and in at least one case, straight to an open cell window, where a hand reached out and grabbed the package like it was a late-night takeout order.

Sutphin, now serving nearly five years at Chillicothe Correctional Institution, said he started as a driver and quickly realized the money was absurd. One early trip to the prisons in Chillicothe brought him $1,200 for less than three hours of work. So naturally, instead of seeing that as a warning sign, he quit his welding job and leaned in. Over about seven months, he says he made roughly $100,000. Child support, divorce lawyer, expensive nights at the bar, Jordans, gold chains. You know, the classic financial planning portfolio.

And this was not amateur hour. Sutphin taught himself to fly drones, scoped out launch points using Google Maps, and kept dozens of backup drones ready to go in a spare bedroom in case one crashed. He said he got past prison drone detection systems about half the time. When the packages needed camouflage, the crew got creative. Drugs were stuffed into empty chip bags so they looked like litter in the yard. One package was disguised using a dead bird carcass, because apparently someone in this operation watched one too many heist movies and thought, yes, this is the move.

Another drop involved a fishing line and sinker attached to a package left on a prison rooftop, so the recipient could pull it down the side of the building, which is both inventive and deeply embarrassing for everyone involved.

The broader ring fed a black market inside Ohio prisons that did real damage. These were not harmless side hustles. The drugs fueled addiction, violence, and chaos inside facilities already filled with people trying, at least theoretically, to survive incarceration and maybe even come out better. Sutphin said he used to think the whole thing was victimless. Prisoners wanted drugs; he brought them drugs, end of story. But now, from inside, he gets to watch the consequences up close: people lying to family members for money, inmates incapacitated while high, bodies convulsing, drooling, unable to move. A front-row seat to the destruction he helped build.

Investigators finally caught a break in May 2021, when a Phantom 4 drone crashed inside Toledo Correctional Institution. Along with phones, fentanyl, and Suboxone, it carried a micro SD card with practice footage showing a bearded man flying the drone in a neighborhood while children played nearby. That led police to Robert Faulkner of Columbus, and from there, the whole operation began to unravel.

Troopers traced phone calls, checked prison lines, mapped cell data, reviewed Amazon deliveries, pulled trash, installed GPS trackers, and matched fingerprints and DNA from confiscated packages to Sutphin, Faulkner, and Charles Gibbs. From May to October, investigators tied the group to 11 intercepted drone drops at five state prisons. Sutphin claims that was only a fraction of the actual number. He estimated there were closer to 100 to 120 drops, with 50 to 70 successful deliveries across eight or nine prisons.

So yes, Ohio had an airborne prison drug network operating at scale, and it was apparently being held together by burner phones, electrical tape, and the kind of decision-making that only makes sense if you are already high.

When police raided Faulkner’s house in November 2021, they found more than $319,000 worth of illegal drugs, along with weapons, cell phones, and drones. Altogether, the case produced more than 100 felony charges. All three men took plea deals. Sutphin got four years and 11 months. Faulkner got 15 years. Gibbs got 10.

Now Sutphin says what he did was “stupid and foolish,” which feels like a strong understatement for a man who once took his children on a road trip to pick up pounds of fentanyl and meth, while stopping for ice cream along the way to keep things fun.

There is something very Ohio about this story. Not the drones, necessarily. The improvisation. The bleakness. The fact that modern technology somehow made prison drug trafficking more efficient than public transit. It is a story about easy money, addiction, stupidity, and the way people convince themselves they are just getting by while making life worse for everyone around them.

The most depressing part is not even how elaborate the scheme became. It is how casual it all sounds in retrospect. A drone here, a package there, a dead bird, a bag of drugs, a prison yard, repeat. Like any other delivery business, just with a much darker customer base and a slightly higher chance of ending in a felony indictment.

D) Tinder and the Demographics for tinder in Ohio is 61% men and 39% woman…