Police take online fraud fight to Nigeria

Julia Talevski
July 28, 2009
An initiative to combat online scams is being trialled by the Queensland Police Service via its website. The portal will give fraud and scam victims the chance to report their case to Ghana police or the Nigerian Economic and Financial Crimes Commission.

It will also provide information on fraud and scams, as well as how to protect yourself.

It will be co-launched with the Nigerian High Commission next month, says Queensland police Detective Superintendent Brian Hay. Internet fraud and scams come in many guises, preying mainly on lonely hearts and businesses that can be easily fooled into sending cash to places such as Nigeria.

According to Hay, these types of money-hungry scams derive mostly from parts of western Africa, predominantly Nigeria and Ghana.

“It will make the process far more efficient and give people instant connectivity, which is something they would have struggled with in the past,” he says.

“We would like to expand that to the rest of the countries in Africa and other places globally, so that people can go onto one spot in Australia. It’s a long-term process, which we’re looking to make far simpler and efficient.”

Hay was awarded recently for his efforts in educating the public on cyber crime and online fraud. He played an instrumental part in investigating the Nigerian advance-fee fraud scam, which had cost vulnerable Australians $36 million a year.

Hay also leads the Queensland Fraud and Corporate Crime Group, which embarked on initiatives aimed at preventing and reporting cyber crime. As part of a collaborative effort with Western Union, it developed a fraud prevention early-warning system that indicates when money is sent to high-risk countries.

“We’re doing a whole lot of new research at the moment,” Hay says.

“In the early stages, we’re having some wins. Some of those investment and inheritance scams are reducing but the big problem that we’ve got now is we’ve seen a 100 per cent increase in romance and relationship scams. It’s just gone through the roof.”

Hay says investigating new scams requires a new approach.

“We’re trying to look at what drives people, what traps them and what age groups are more susceptible,” he says. “It’s very sad when you see these victims of romance scams. It’s just amazing how much more money is still going to countries like Nigeria and it’s being driven at the moment by relationship fraud.”

The police service plans to host an identity crime symposium on the Gold Coast in October.

Scam victim goes on trial

By Kimball Perry

The letter Tamika Thomas got in September was exciting.
It announced that her receipt from a local convenience store had automatically entered her into a sweepstakes – and she’d won $2,490.

All she had to do was contact the Nigerian letter writer, accept and cash a $2,490 check and send half back to Nigeria.

She did.

She was scammed.

Then she was arrested.

Now, she’s being prosecuted, bank employees aren’t talking and her attorney is wondering why this case is even in criminal court.

“It sounds like it’s more of a civil case. That’s why we’re going ahead with it,” said Bob Fiorenza, Thomas’ attorney.

He is insisting that Thomas, charged with theft and forgery, go to trial.

Thomas, her attorney said, is guilty – but only of being naïve enough to be scammed.

“Sure, she could have been smarter knowing you don’t just get a check for nothing,” Fiorenza said.

But he suspects the bank employees – who cashed the check – were embarrassed after they discovered the scam and called police.

Thomas, 28, of Norwood, has no criminal record other than a few driving infractions. Her actions, he insists, show she had no intent to scam Evendale Woodforest National Bank.

In September, Thomas took the check – No. 113, drawn on the Bank of New York Mellon – to the Evendale bank and deposited it.

“She waited four or five days before seeing if it cleared,” Fiorenza said.

When it did, she withdrew the money.

How, Fiorenza wondered, can Thomas be charged with theft if the bank told her the check she’d deposited was good and then gave her the money?

“They went ahead and cashed it. That’s the thing,” he said.

An attorney for the bank, Chuck Vernon, cited privacy laws in declining to talk about Thomas’ case. But he said his bank doesn’t necessarily wait for checks to clear before handing over the cash.

If the depositor endorses the check, Vernon said, “they’re responsible for the legitimacy of the check.”

“We’re out the money,” Vernon added.

Vernon noted the bank’s allegations must have had some validity because the Evendale Police Department decided to arrest Thomas.
Thomas’ actions after that, Fiorenza noted, also show she had no intent to steal.
After taking the money out of the bank, she did as instructed by the letter that announced she’d won the sweepstakes and she sent half of the money – $1,200 – back to Africa, Fiorenza said.

“They told me to send it to a friend or family member so they could have a reference number from the moneygram. All the directions were in the letter, what they told me to do,” Thomas said in a July 17 court hearing before Hamilton County Common Pleas Judge William Mallory.

“She followed the rules, but now she’s being prosecuted,” Fiorenza added.

Calls to the Evendale bank were referred to the regional manager in the Houston, Texas, area. Messages left there weren’t returned. Bank employees called Evendale police, who arrested Thomas for theft and forgery, charges that carry a maximum prison sentence of two years.

Hamilton County prosecutors are tight-lipped about the case. They say Thomas’ comments – that she is the victim of a scam – is something they hear often.

Fiorenza insisted the case go to trial without a jury. The bench trial, with Mallory presiding, is Friday.

US Secret Service help in fraud case

ROCKHAMPTON police are going to need help from the United States Secret Service to convict a local woman of allegedly scamming more than $500,000 from victims over the internet.

But it’s going to take at least two months for the city’s forensic unit to obtain the information.

Caribbean-born Shirley Marilyn La Ragy, 42, is accused of operating a large-scale Nigerian fraud network from her North Rockhampton home.

Yesterday her second attempt at bail was refused in Rockhampton Magistrates Court.

Her 21-year-old son is now forced to look after his six-year-old sister until the matters are finalised in the court system, which could take months or years.

Police Prosecutor Constable Darryl Cox said it would take several months for the United States Secret Service to gather the forensic evidence.

It’s alleged La Ragy was part of a “crime syndicate” in which she lied to people in America, asking them for monetary help.

Constable Cox said she established relationships with her victims so she could then defraud them.

“It’s through the relationship she created that she had intimate knowledge of the complainant,” Constable Cox said.

La Ragy is charged with six counts of fraud and one count of possessing tainted property.

No one else has been charged but police are continuing their investigation with her associates.

Magistrate Tom Bradshaw said it was too risky to free La Ragy as the alleged scam involved a number of countries and it was done over the internet, which was hard to police.

Just two days after she was arrested, police say, one of her victims received a threatening email.

The email told the man that La Ragy was not involved and that he would be “punished” for reporting information to the police.

“You want to destroy the world and reprimand the innocent,” the email read.

“You will not go unpunished … I will reveal your secrets.”

Constable Cox said the email was sent under La Ragy’s ID but was not from her.

La Ragy was arrested on Wednesday in her Cooper Street home by State Fraud and Corporate Crime police.

Her computer was seized along with more than a dozen brown paper bags of evidence, including four bundles of cash that totalled $29,350.

Police said she used different names online as part of her scam – Doctor Juliette Williams, Shirley Joseph, Marilyn Joseph and Juliette Kreoger.

From four complainants, police claimed Laragy La Ragy scammed a total of $US428,915 (more than $520,000 Australian).

Defence solicitor Danny Yarrow said La Ragy, who had lived in Rockhampton for about five years, planned to become a nurse.

She is currently in the middle of studies at Rockhampton TAFE.

He said the matter would be strongly contested in court.

La Ragy will appear again on September 23 for a committal mention.