Scamming People Out Of Money Through Nigerian 419 Scams And Romance Fraud

I just watched a programme on "60 Minutes" about the infamous Nigerian 4-1-9 scams, you know the ones where someone emails you with the good news that you have inherited a huge sum of money, or asking you to help them out with some kind of legal money jam. I have had so many of those annoying emails enter my mail box over the years it's no longer a joke. And it's certainly not a joke for the many, often very educated fools, who stupidly fall for the scam. Some of whom have committed suicide after being scammed out of huge sums of money. Of course scams don't just originate in Nigeria or Sierra Leone or the Ivory Coast, there are scammers all over the world, and all they want is to part you with your hard earned money. Some people have lost thousands of dollars. The woman on "60 Minutes" lost her life's savings: $200,000.00. My heart goes out to someone who loses their money, but then again to fall for a scam that has been around and publicized for years, and thinking you can get something for nothing (which is what they think at first) is utter stupidity, and greed, to a great extent.

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These scammers are consummate professionals, and they know exactly how to lure you in. They offer you the enticement of millions of dollars (with whatever ruse it happens to be), then there's a problem and they need a small sum to bribe an official, or whatever else seems to be an appropriate excuse to get money from you. They continue to do this until they bleed you dry. Most people are too embarrassed to tell anyone what happened, let alone contact the authorities.

Then I read this article on "romance fraud". Same kind of scam, different scenario. This time they target people looking for love on the Internet. A different, but even more despicable form of scamming, since they are taking advantage of people looking for love and marriage. And it's not just women who are targets, as one might assume, men have been scammed as well. My hairdresser (a male) told me about a "Russian woman" who tried to scam him on some Internet dating site. After a short time communicating via email, she said she wanted to visit. As soon as she said she needed money to come to the U.S., he backed away, but others aren't so savvy and have lost a lot of money on those kinds of scams.

One woman in England lost an incredibly large amount of money to a 31-year-old man from Ghana. This romance fraudster extraordinaire had apparently duped quite a few women out of their money via internet dating sites.

In what is thought to be the biggest case of its kind so far, police detained Maurice Asola Fadola, 31, who is thought to be behind a series of "romance frauds" – targeting women through dating sites, and fabricating an elaborate series of stories to convince them to send money to Ghana.

Sadly, the woman thought she was corresponding with a U.S. soldier based in Iraq. Suckering the woman over several months into falling for him, Fadola finally made his move:

After several months of correspondance, in which he told of his life dodging bullets and bombs, he told her that he was leaving the army – and perhaps they could meet up. But while his luggage was being returned to the US, there were a series of "problems" which the British woman was enticed into helping out – to the eventual cost of £271,000.

The head of the Ghanaian Serious Fraud Office described Mr Fadola as a suspected "kingpin", and his arrest after months of painstaking intelligence gathering is the high point of a joint Ghanaian-British campaign against alleged romance frauds.

Last month officers from the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) travelled to the Ghanaian capital of Accra to work alongside Ghanaian police in arresting Mr Fadola.

Officers had planned to mount a "sting" operation; setting traps for when he came to collect money they had sent to a money transfer service, or lying in wait for him to pick up a parcel of laptops or mobile phones from the Post Office.

Police froze his bank accounts, and when he came into the Serious Fraud Office in Accra to try and brazen his way into releasing the funds, he was arrested.

Mr Fadola, who lived in a luxurious mansion on the outskirts of Accra, is being held in custody and questioned over money laundering and passport offences, which carry a maximum sentence of 25 years.

Colin Woodcock, head of SOCA's fraud department, said that his team was working alongside Ghanaian authorities, sharing policing techniques with local forces to track down the fraudsters.

"At first we thought it was just people sending £50 here or there," he said, "but although the bulk are small frauds, now we know that some people are being robbed of hundreds of thousands.

"It's an international problem, involving police forces from across the globe working together to squeeze the criminals."

And it seems that with the advent and increasing popularity of on-line dating sites this kind of fraud is now on the increase. How much will probably never be known, since people are even more embarrassed to admit they were duped in love, via the internet. Not everyone can take the consequences of such a loss.

In August last year Philip Hunt, 58, threw himself under a train after losing £82,000 in a romance fraud. He had met a Nigerian girl on the internet, who convinced him to spend the money with promises of starting a life together.

"These people are out to get people when they are very vulnerable and at a low ebb. They're in there like vultures," Lesley Smith, Mr Hunt's former partner, told the inquest into his death.

Mr Woodcock said: "The bottom line is: don't give anyone your money. Imagine you'd met someone in a pub for the first time, and they said I'd love to see you again but can you buy me a laptop?

Criminals will always find ways to destroy lives, and this is just another way. There should be sever consequences for anyone caught scamming.