This archive report was first published on 23 August 2019.
On August 23, 2019, US Federal prosecutors announced charges against 80 suspects, mostly Nigerian nationals, in a multi-million-dollar con scheme targeting women and businesses worldwide.
The suspects are accused of stealing over $46 million through various schemes, including romance scams and email impersonation.
One of the schemes involved impersonating email accounts belonging to various companies to send bogus requests for money.
Another scheme, known as 'romance scams', involved logging onto dating sites to woo other users, especially elderly women, and asking them for monetary gifts or to complete transactions on their behalf.
Law enforcement officers arrested 14 people in the United States, with 11 of them from South Carolina, on Thursday.
Two Nigerian nationals, Valentine Iro and Chukwudi Christogunus Igbokwe, were among those arrested in the US and were named as co-conspirators working with others in the US and in Nigeria to obtain money from victims and then transfer it abroad.
US Attorney in Los Angeles, Nick Hanna, said the fraudsters laundered the money after receiving it from their victims.
One notable case cited by federal authorities involved a Japanese woman known only as 'F.K.', who borrowed $200,000 from her former husband, friends, and relatives and sent it to a man she had met on an online dating site, who posed as a US Army captain.
LA reported that the woman made 35 to 40 payments, receiving as many as 10 to 15 emails a day directing her to send cash to accounts in the US, Turkey, and the United Kingdom through the captain's many purported associates.
US authorities believe this is one of the largest cases of its kind in U.S. history and are taking a major step to disrupt these criminal networks.
