Woman conned out of £132,000 in dating scam

Woman conned out of £132,000 in dating scam

By CLARE SEMKE
Crime Reporter
A LONELY woman looking for love was cheated out of £132,000 in a devious internet dating scam.
The conman who wooed the victim on oldflirts.co.uk claimed to be a dashing American who was living in Malaysia but wanted to return to the UK.

But he turned out to be a cruel trickster who conned the victim, from Portsmouth – who has not been named by police – out of her lifesavings.

After about a month he asked the woman, in her 50s, for money, saying he didn’t have access to his bank accounts and needed £3,000.

He made further requests – saying he needed help to get out of the country, and on another occasion asking for money for ‘basic travel allowances’.

The fraudster also claimed he had £2.5m he wanted to bring into the UK, but needed help from his victim to clear the funds.

He even said he had kidney failure and needed cash for a transplant.

The victim made more than 10 payments through money transfer firm Western Union in an eight-month period.

Detective Constable Pete Spake said: ‘He was very flattering and attentive to her needs. Within about a month of the first contact he started asking for money. He said he was working in Malaysia and didn’t have access to his bank accounts.

‘He said he was being threatened with prison because he had been forced by his boss to carry out some criminal activity and was trapped. Then he said he had £2.5m and he wanted to bring it into the UK but needed help clearing the funds.

‘They kept coming up with more expenses that were needed to clear this money to the UK which she duly paid. He then said he needed kidney failure and needed surgery.

‘She is very distressed. It was everything she had. She’s broke.’ She’s not the first victim in our area to lose cash while looking for love over the internet.

Postie Shane Symington from Portsmouth was cheated out of £130,000 by Nigerian internet fraudsters posing as a beautiful model. Now Det Con Spake is urging internet daters to be on their guard.

‘My advice to anyone is don’t send money to someone you have met over the internet,’ he said.

‘If it appears too good to be true, it normally is.’

Love Scam: EFCC Returns $9,300 To Australian Victim

Love Scam: EFCC Returns $9,300 To Australian Victim
November 26, 2009 13:53
Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, Mrs. Farida Waziri, has directed that Rosalind Sumner, an Australian victim of love scam be paid the sum of N514, 212.10 and another $5,900 recovered from a Nigerian fraudster.

The payment which is restitution is in fulfilment of a Lagos State High Court judgment of March 10, 2009, against Lawal Adewale Nurudeen, a graduate of the University of Lagos, who was prosecuted and sentenced to 28 years imprisonment by Hon. M. O. Obadina of the Lagos High Court.

Nurudeen was first arraigned on November 31, 2008, by the EFCC, on an 11-count charge bordering on Advance Fee Fraud. He had defrauded the Australian of the sum of $47, 816.93 in a romance scam.

The N514, 212.10, was recently recovered from the convict’s bank account in Sterling Bank while another sum of $5900 was recovered from his home.

The court, in its ruling, also directed that the balance of the money be recovered through the sale of his car, two plots of land and a monthly $250 which would be paid to the victim.

The Queensland Police, Australia, as well as the victim, have made requests for the recovered funds to be released to the latter in line with the judgment. In a letter to the Commission, the victim, Rosalind Sumner, commended the EFCC for the successful prosecution of the case.

Consequently, the anti-graft agency on Monday directed that all funds so far recovered from the convict totalling about $9,300 be handed over to the Australian Ambassador to Nigeria for onward delivery to the victim.

EFCC arrests varsity dropout over $96,000 fraud

Lanre Adewole, Abuja – 23.11.2009
A former student of the Igbinedion University, Okada, Edo State, Okoro Victor, alias Jerry Finger, has been arrested by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) for allegedly defrauding foreigners to the tune of $96,607 through the internet.
The 23-year-old fraudster, who dropped out of the university in 2004 due to what he called “family issues,” was arrested by operatives of the commission in Benin City, Edo State, following a petition by a regional officer with Money gram, who suspected that a number of foreign ladies, who had been wiring money to the fraudster were victims of fraud.
The suspicion was triggered by a communication with one of the victims who told Money gram that she met the fraudster on the internet and she had been sending him money because he claimed he wanted to set up a business.
Subsequent investigations revealed that Victor was a serial marriage scammer, who had been fleecing his victims posing as Jerry Finger, a white British-American expatriate working in Nigeria.
Apart from sending photographs to his victims and promising them marriage, he would also tell them that he was in Nigeria to execute a project and then demand for money from them, with a promise to refund it when he was paid.
Before he was finally nabbed, a total of $96,607.95 had been remitted to him by many of his victims from the United States and Germany.
The suspect, who was arrested on October 23, had since been admitted to administrative bail, but would soon be charged to court.
Meanwhile, the chairman of the EFCC, Mrs. Farida Waziri, has charged Nigerian youths to take up the gauntlet in the fight against corruption in the country.