ADVANCE FREE FRAUD BARON :
Osas Odia arriving at Croydon Crown Court.
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Two Nigerian fraudsters, whose global
£2.7m scam had deadly consequences for one family they mercilessly ripped off,
were jailed yesterday [Dec. 4].
Police identified a total of thirteen
victims all over the world, who each lost an average of £207,000, after the duo
convinced them they were due an Australian lottery pay-out, inheritance, and
investment benefit or were sold non-existent heavy plant machinery.
Obinnam
Nwokolo,
37, of 20 Chesworth Close, Erith, who amassed a valuable property portfolio in
the UK and Nigeria, received six years and four months and Uchechhukwu Onuoha, 40, of Aspen Green, Erith, who entered this
country on a student visa, received five years and two months.
Both pleaded guilty at Croydon Crown
Court to conspiracy to defraud between October 1, 2008 and September 15 last
year.
One of their victims, Betty
McClellan, 62, of Hyde Park, Los Angeles was shot dead by her husband Hersey
McClellan, 63, who then shot himself on June 20, 2010 after she wired
£264,000 — blowing
the couple’s hard-earned pension.
She transferred the sums to accounts
controlled by fellow Nigerians Sergius
Ene, 44, of 111 Rushden Gardens, Ilford and Osas Odia, 33, of 15 Windrush Court, Chichester Wharf, Erith, who
both admitted conspiring to launder criminal property.
Ene, who
received sixteen months in March for a £27,000 Euromilions lottery scam on an
83 year-old Northampton pensioner, was jailed for two years and eight months
for laundering £342,400.
The accountant, a former Haringey
Council housing benefit officer, drove a Mercedes with a personalised ‘ENE’
number plate. He is currently appealing deportation and it was revealed the
mother of his three children entered into a sham marriage with a French citizen
of African origin just to stay in the UK.
Student Odia, who laundered £149,000, was deported in 2005 as an illegal overstayer after a forged passport conviction, but is now a permanent resident after marrying a UK national. He will be sentenced on February 11 so he can complete a management degree.
Some victims paid money to a bogus
charity claiming to assist West African refugees, and one even paid for a
non-existent U.S. Army General to ship his trunk of belongings from Afghanistan
to Australia.
The criminals convinced Betty McClellan, 62,
that she had
won $2.8m on the Australian lottery.
She sent them £264,000 to 'cover tax and
admin costs'
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'When her husband discovered she had
lost all of their pension savings he shot her dead and then turned the gun on
himself and committed suicide,' added Mr. Evans. Their bodies were found by their son.
An Indiana farmer, believing he had a
claim on a £14.9m inheritance, lost over £339,000 and a Venezuelan businessman
lost £163,000 buying a mobile crane, Nwokolo
and father-of-two Onuoha advertised
for sale on a Spanish website.
A Bristol woman lost £312,000 chasing
a £1.8m Australian lottery win and found herself arrested after paying the
counterfeit £158,000 cheque the defendants sent her into her account.
Father-of-three Nwokolo even bought three 1,350 per-hour letter-folding machines
to increase the volume of mail shots and his home contained lists with details
of thousands of individuals and businesses.
Onuoha
had
a pile of 593 scam letters ready for postage when police raided the home he
rented off Nwokolo and officers also
found a prepared ‘script’ he used when duping victims over the phone.
'It
is difficult to think of a larger advance free fraud than this', announced
Judge Jeremy Gold QC. 'It is
on an enormous scale.
'Thousands of emails and letters were
sent out across the world promising money from non-existent relatives from
inheritances or non-existence lottery wins’. 'You preyed on the naivety or
generosity of people to extract large amounts of money from them with
devastating effects on their personal lives.
'I regard this fraud as one that
falls into the most serious category of advanced fee fraud, targeting
vulnerable victims’.
Proceeds of Crime Act confiscation
proceedings will follow.
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