Troup County deputies arrested two men in connection with an international email scheme that defrauded a Troup County church out of $60,000. TROUP COUNTY, Ga. – Two men face multiple felony fraud charges after an international cyber scheme siphoned $60,000 from a Troup County church, according to sheriff's deputies. Investigators with the Troup County Sheriff's Office confirmed two men are now in custody following a rare cross-border financial scheme. Deputies traveled to Newark International Airport in early October to take Ousmane Diaby into custody after he arrived on a flight from Ghana. Deputies brought Diaby back to Georgia, charging him with five counts of identity fraud, money laundering, theft by taking and writing a deceptive commercial email. Investigators noted that arrests in international cyber operations like this remain exceedingly rare. Lt. Stewart Smith of the Troup County Sheriff's Office detailed how the scammers deceived church leaders into transferring funds. Smith explained: "And what they did, they were manipulating emails, manipulating accounts where this church had a relationship with a previous organization, and the church legitimately thought they were sending funds to this legitimate organization. And what these two individuals were doing, they creating other accounts and the money was being deposited in there and they were able to take that and actually make cash transactions from ATM machines." The deceptive operation dates back to 2025, when…
*This content (including text, artwork, graphics, photography, and video) was provided by the third party(ies) as referenced above. Any rights or other content questions or inquiries should be directed to such third-party provider(s).
