Two Nigerian men who duped a woman out of £1.6 million in a sophisticated romance scam were today, Friday, January 8, jailed for a total of 5-and-a-half years at Basildon Crown Court.
Ife Ojo, 31, (left) of Hammonds Drive, Peterborough in Cambridgeshire was jailed for 34 months for conspiracy to defraud. His accomplice Olusegun Agbaje (right), 43, of Kershaw Close, Hornchurch in Essex was jailed for 32 months for conspiracy to defraud.
Detective Chief Inspector Gary Miles, of FALCON - the Met’s specialist Cyber Crime and Fraud Unit, said:
"Today’s sentencing recognises the devastating impact this kind of fraud has on its victims. I would like to pay tribute to the victim in this case who provided evidence which was crucial in securing two guilty pleas in this case.
"The financial and emotional impact to the victim has been huge. Many victims borrow money from friends and family to pay the suspects. Victims typically feel embarrassed and ashamed when they realise they have been duped, so they often don't report what has happened to them or even confide in a friend."
In January 2015, a woman in her 40s, from Hillingdon, reported to Action Fraud that she had been a victim of fraud. The case was referred the Met's cyber crime and fraud team, FALCON.
The victim told police that in February 2014 she met a man calling himself Christian Anderson on a dating site. After a few weeks, they met in person. He told her that he was an engineer working in the oil industry, that he was divorced and had a daughter, and that his father and sister died of cancer.
After a few weeks, he told her that he loved her. He said he was having a difficult time working on a project in Benin, Africa. He said that he wanted to come home to be with her but first he needed some specialist machinery so he could finish the project. He asked her for a loan to pay import duty for the machinery.
She paid over £30,000 into the business account of his supposed personal assistant, a man allegedly called Brandon Platt, but Anderson then requested more cash, ranging from £25,000 for a police fine, to thousands of pounds to free up inheritance money left by his mother, who lived in Cape Town.
He advised her that he needed to utilize the legacy cash to set up an existence with the casualty. Charges for arranging for the legacy cash included expenses for holding it in a vault in Amsterdam and $170,000 to pay for a non-existent "hostile to terrorist testament" so that the cash could be kept at a bank.
The casualty had been persuaded that they would live respectively, and had been searching for a home for them to purchase. She met with somebody guaranteeing to be Anderson's legal advisor, and even made a trip to an office in Amsterdam to meet a man calling himself Dr Spencer, who was as far as anyone knows in charge of holding the cash in a vault.
In the middle of March and December 2014, the casualty paid £1.6million into various financial balances.
The cash was accordingly moved into different individual records, including £35,000 to the ledgers of Ife Ojo and Olusegun Agbaje. The casualty questioned the legitimacy of Anderson's stories on various events yet every time she requested verification he sent false documentation or concocted pardons for why he couldn't send her confirmation.
Hawk completed a budgetary examination. They distinguished Agbaje as one of the beneficiaries of the casualty's cash and went to his place of residence where they discovered him with Ojo. Both were captured and their homes sought. At Ojo's home, they found a portable workstation containing records of the casualty's discussion with Anderson, a keepsake book apparently sent to Anderson by another casualty and a duplicate of the book 'The Game'.
Hawk built up that they had gotten £35,000 of the casualty's money and charged them. In September 2015, Ojo, an understudy from Peterborough and Agbaje, a clerical specialist of Hornchurch both conceded to intrigue to swindle at Basildon Crown Court.
Criminologists are proceeding with their enquiries as they look for different individuals from the posse and attempt to recognize whatever other casualties.
Source: Metropolitan Police
0 comments:
Post a Comment