St. Louis, MO (KTRS) An area man is going to prison for his role in a romance scam.

The U.S. Attorney’s office says that 30-year-old Hammed Akande was sentenced Thursday to more than 5 years after pleading guilty back in March to conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud.

Court documents say that back in 2017, Akande began serving as a “money mule” in the scam, which targeted 24 elderly residents of Missouri and a number of other states.

Romance scams are schemes in which fraudsters pretend to be in a romantic relationship with their victims in order to obtain money and merchandise. Because the victims are targeted through online sites and social media, the scammers are able to hide their identities by using the names and photographs of other people.