One person, named as S.S. in court records, told police he was offered a £20,000 high-interest Commonwealth Bank of Australia account with a monthly return of £400. Officials say he gave Smyth a check on Oct. 28, 2008.
S.S. received £400 a month from November 2008 to April 2009 and again in June 2009, believing it was a return on his investment, court documents claimed. The payments halted after June 2009, officials stated.
Prosecutors say a Commonwealth Bank of Australia representative told him the bank “had no record of an account associated with his name and that the account number did not exist.” Court filings show S.S. failed to reach Smyth.
The complaint stated that Smyth entered the U.S. using a U.S. passport on June 25, 2013, and has not left since. Her extradition was requested by the British Embassy in 2021 and October.
Smyth was convicted in Los Angeles of scamming podcaster Johnathan Walton, who called her his best friend, years after she left from Northern Ireland in 2009. California grand theft conviction Smyth received a five-year sentence in January 2019.
In a 2019 HuffPost piece, Walton described "a four-year nightmare" involving Smyth, "an immensely lovable woman who inserted herself into my life and became my best friend." "Unfortunately, she was also an international con artist on the run from the authorities and I was about to become one of her many 'marks,'" Walton said.
Smyth was sentenced to five years for defrauding Walton of $91,784 in January 2019. She was released early on Dec. 12, 2020, when California released thousands of nonviolent convicts to stop Covid.
In early 2021, Walton launched "Queen of the Con," a podcast on his narrative. According to The Guardian, listeners gave Walton Smyth's latest Maine address. According to The Guardian, Smyth was arrested in Bingham after sharing the address with Northern Irish authorities.
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