Two United Kingdom-based Nigerians who duped a woman of £1.6m in a romance scam were sentenced to a total of five-and-a-half years imprisonment at a Basildon Crown Court in London on Friday.
Ife Ojo (31) of Hammonds Drive, Peterborough in Cambridgeshire was jailed for 34 months for conspiracy to defraud while his accomplice, Olusegun Agbaje (43) of Kershaw Close, Hornchurch, Essex was jailed 32 months for conspiracy to defraud.
According to the Metropolitan Police, a year ago, a woman in her 40s, from Hillingdon, reported to Action Fraud that she had been a victim of fraud and the case was later referred to the Metropolitan Police’s cyber crime and fraud team, FALCON.
The victim told the police that in February 2014, she met a man calling himself Christian Anderson on a dating site. After a few weeks, they met in person. He told her that he was an engineer working in the oil industry, that he was divorced and had a daughter, and that his father and sister died of cancer.
After professing his love a few weeks, he reportedly told her he was having a difficult time working on a project in Benin, Africa and asked her for a loan to pay import duty for machinery.
She reportedly paid over £30,000 into the business account of his supposed personal assistant, a man allegedly called Brandon Platt, but Anderson then requested more cash, ranging from £25,000 for a police fine, to thousands of pounds to free up inheritance money left by his mother, who lived in Cape Town.
According to the Met police, between March and December 2014, the victim reportedly ended up paid £1.6million into numerous bank accounts.
The money was subsequently transferred into various personal accounts, including £35,000 to the bank accounts of Ife Ojo and Olusegun Agbaje.
FALCON carried out a financial investigation. They identified Agbaje as one of the recipients of the victim’s money and went to his home address where they found him with Ojo. Both were arrested and their homes searched.
The BBC reports that in September 2015, Ojo, a student from Peterborough and Agbaje, an administrative assistant of Hornchurch both pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud at Basildon Crown Court.
The Detective Chief Inspector Gary Miles of FALCON said, “Today’s sentencing recognises the devastating impact this kind of fraud has on its victims. I would like to pay tribute to the victim in this case who provided evidence which was crucial in securing two guilty pleas in this case.”
