Four Nigerian men, Monty Emu, Adewunmi Nusi, Emmanuel Oko, and Chukwuka Ugwu (pictured below) have been jailed a total of 14 years for duping single women out of about $350,000.
According to the UK Mirror, the four men duped these women after they responded to a false profile of an "attractive middle-aged man" on popular dating site, Match.com. Don't these women learn?
From UK Mirror
"They then fell for the conman's story
that he was due to receive a £100
million inheritance from his father but
that it was tied up by red tape in India.
Once the relationship had developed
with the fake man, normally called
James Richards, the conspirators
started requesting cash.
At first the women were asked for a
£700 legal fee by a fake solicitor but
then the sums requested rose to up to
£100,000, Winchester Crown Court
heard.
The trial was told that vulnerable
women were conned out of £220,000,
with one victim, Suzanne Hardman,
handing over £174,000.
Some realised it was a scam and did
not hand over any cash.
Following a three-week trial, Monty
Emu, 28, of Frencham Road, Southsea,
Hampshire, and Adewunmi Nusi, 37, of
Bomford Close, Hermitage, Berkshire,
were convicted of money laundering.
At the start of the trial, Emmanuel Oko,
30, of Waverley Grove, Southsea,
pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud
and money laundering and Chukwuka
Ugwu, 29, of Somers Road, Southsea,
admitted money laundering.
Oko, who was said by the judge to be
at the centre of the conspiracy, was
sentenced to eight years'
imprisonment for the fraud and four
years to run concurrently for the
money laundering offence.
Emu, who laundered about £55,000
during nine months, was jailed for
three and a half years, Ugwu was jailed
for 46 weeks and Nusi was imprisoned
for 18 months.
Sentencing the four men, Judge Susan
Evans QC said: "This was a highly
sophisticated conspiracy to defraud, it
preyed on the trusting, the lonely and
the emotionally vulnerable. The
amount of planning was, in my view,
substantial and would have required a
highly organised group of individuals.
Some of those females that were
targeted were utterly taken in by this
cruel scam and the sophistication of
the crime means it's unsurprising that
some of them were taken in. The hurt
and distress you caused them was
enormous. It's not even about the loss
of the money being at the forefront of
this, it's about the emotional hurt you
caused them."
In a victim impact statement, Ms
Hardman, from Basingstoke, said that
the fraud had led to her suffering
sleepless nights and not eating
because of the stress and that she had
lost her self-respect.
She said: "From the day I reported the
incident to the police, I felt very
vulnerable and sick to my stomach. As
I look back, I felt groomed and that is
how I became a victim of this, I
wouldn't want anyone else to be a
victim of this type of crime. I do feel a
duty to warn others, women
specifically, of this type of theft over
dating websites and the internet. The
money itself was to act as a pension
and to support my family as I got old,
one could say I have lost everything
that I had from a 28-year marriage."
Sylvia Tai Sen Choy, who lost £11,300
to the scam, said that she had been put
on anti-depressants since falling
victim and at one point I was too
frightened to answer the phone.
"All I wanted to do was meet someone
so I wasn't on my own, it sickens me
that there are people out there who
want to prey on people's emotions."
No comments:
Post a Comment