Image – X
Picture this: a match on a dating app with a guy who says he plays wide receiver for the San Francisco 49ers. He shows up to the first date in a jersey, a helmet in the back seat of his car, like he just walked off practice. He talks about a future together, about investments that’ll make you both rich. You believe him, and why wouldn’t you? He even showed you the Google search proving it. Then one day the calls stop, the messages stop, and you’re left wondering where your money went.
Daejon Love: the man who faked being a 49ers player, bought a $1,160 helmet, and scammed 26 women out of $1.3 million
Federal prosecutors say the pair ran a romance-and-investment scam across California, Oregon, Washington, and Idaho for over four years, taking $1.3 million, and the FBI believes many more victims haven’t come forward yet.
Chan played the “financial adviser,” backing up his fake investment pitches so victims believed their money was actually growing somewhere. He posed as a 49ers player under aliases including Jon Love, Jordan Love, and Avril Lyto Love, and separately claimed to be a wealthy real estate investor. When victims got suspicious, prosecutors say he’d send them screenshots of Google’s AI Overview falsely listing him as an NFL player, and if they pushed back, his line was reportedly, “That’s Google, that’s not me. Once someone ran out of money or asked too many questions, he cut them off and kept whatever they’d sent. Once the case went public, former NFL linebacker Su’a Cravens couldn’t hold back, joking that victims should’ve just tried to FaceTime him on game day. Sports accounts piled on with a running joke that the 49ers’ offseason had somehow gotten messier than the season itself between a Brandon Aiyuk contract standoff, owner Jed York’s arrest, Kyle Shanahan’s car accident, and now a guy who invented an entire fake roster spot. Both Love and Chan are in federal custody in Boise facing wire fraud and conspiracy charges, with an initial court appearance already held. Nothing has been proven in court yet, and both are presumed innocent, but if even a fraction of what prosecutors allege is true, this might be the most elaborate catfish the NFL world has ever indirectly been dragged into.