FBI takes down Nigerian fraudsters in $46 mil case involving Japanese woman

Our fine upstanding innocent immigrants just trying to make a living, I knew NY was a haven for Nigerians, but never thought about LA.

And BTW: take a trip through Kanagawa on an early morning, you'll be amazed to see hundreds of Nigerians... Doing what..? Working at Deutsche bank...? No, not quite, I'm not sure what, but by the looks of their attire, I guess Japan offers thousands of working visa's to work at Junk yards... Oh, I'm sure all their paperwork is in order... You can take that to the bank...

OMG! One bad apple spoils everything for the lot of foreigners living here in Japan as if we don't have it bad enough.

A month into the relationship, Garcia told her he'd found a bag of diamonds in Syria 

Cogito Ergo Sum:

It's the prominence of the article and splash photo that REALLY strike me. " Nigerian " ( bad !! ) , "Japanese woman " ( victim !!) .

No need for political correctness here. Fact is that in Nigeria the 491 scams are a major part of the economy (2nd after oil production according to some estimates), while in Japan, this sort of scam is limited to the old "ore ore sagi", targeting local old people.

Yes, there is no need to blank out Nigeria, claiming this is somehow an equal opportunity thing.

Surely Nigeria is now one of the richest countries in the world.

Are we meant to have sympathy for the Japanese woman that willingly participated in what would have been illegal activity? Smuggling anything is illegal.

Inspired by this article, I watched a documentary about this and was surprise by how much the criminal element has grown and how brazen it is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4kCN7TZ6us

419 is the Nigerian fraud code.

Aren't the American military and vets very upset when they discover people pretending to be military personnel?

I am not in favor of the use of the military for imperial ambitions but, after watching that documentary, forget Iran.

I'd turn a blind eye to a few black ops or even gunships strafing Festac in Lagos until they got the message to stop.

"A fool and his or her money is soon parted" "You got to help me smuggle diamonds out of Syria." If you fell for that line of bull crap you deserve to have your money taken. Yeah I said it.

Nigeria is the No1 country for internet scams

A quick check on google tells me the USA followed by the UK are tops.

When you hear 'USA' or 'UK', the first thing that comes to mind isn't 'internet scams'.

When you hear 'Nigeria', I don't know of anything else but that there's a prince with a million dollars he wants to give me.

Nigeria is the No1 country for internet scams

A quick check on google tells me the USA followed by the UK are tops.

Anyway, it's Friday, so let me bore you. My first experience of this kind of thing was in the 1980s, before the internet took off. My colleague in Osaka had received a request from a client (a railway company) to translate a fax they had received. He asked me for help in understanding the English. The fax was from Nigeria, and contained phrases such as "former government minister", "investment opportunity", "need to repatriate funds", etc. But by and large, the English was hard to understand. We tried to clean up the translation, but we suddenly both realized that cleaning it up would make it more believable, and so my colleague explained to the client that it looked like a scam. After a few meetings, a few beers, and expressions of disappointment of not getting a free trip to Nigeria, the client decided not to respond. I'm glad to say the railway company is still around and that perhaps I made some contribution to that.

Most of the arrested are Nigerians, as stated. Nigeria is the No1 country for internet scams but there are others. I have worked with good Nigerian people and some are close friends so we shouldn't judge an entire nation from the actions of these criminals.

Of course there are good Nigerians, no one is thinking or disputing that, but overall, their reputation when it comes to business, scheming, scamming, shady business deals etc. is not a good one, that’s just a fact and that doesn’t mean pointing it out is racist, even amongst most Africans, they know the reputation of Nigerians.

Somebody tried to pull the same scam on me in Words with Friends, yes, that scrabble game, it's a got a chat function and this guy claimed he's a retired US Army general working for the UN. I googled the name, and it exists, but I knew right away it's a scam, so I just led the guy on as I kicked his ass game after game, telling him yeah, I'm gonna call that no you gave me as soon as my internet is hooked up, yah, I'll send you that email as soon as I get my dog back from the vet. Went on for days, then I asked him to send me some money just to keep up our friendship. Never heard from buddy again.

Nigerian. Surprise.

Well it's Los Angeles, so if he's lucky, he's there illegally and they'll just let him go.

But also Russia, China and North Korea.

But overwhelmingly, Nigerians.

@zichi - yes, those other places too - as per:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romance_scam

@oyatoi - that is a good post. Recommend watching the linked to video.

The Majority of these Scams appear to be committed by Nigerians nowadays.

It must surely be embarrassing to other Law abiding Nigerians that their Country is now synonymous with such Global Internet based crimes. Perhaps if it was made Socially unacceptable within their own Country, things may change ?

It all could’ve been avoided if only she’d watched TED.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_QdPW8JrYzQ

Those Nigerian scam+fraudulent crimes were from the years '90, I helped some to find still few Japanese people to be victims of them. Most of Japanese people deceived were thinking some profiting from their plans to release money from some troubles happening in the world (most sort of kid stories)...I wish and hope Japanese people check advices of fraudulent sites on internet sites and wake up money never comes easily from virtual communications. Very sad to see victims still existing those 30 to 35 years still working to get money from innocents but at the same time to those eager-easy-way to get money victims...

Haven't those Nigeria scam has been for a while? I think the fraud code is 419 in FBI. I used to receive email from some unknown individual saying he is some prince and need my help to send over many million dollars.

The guys that have been arrested are small fry.

this guy is the real thing. 242 MILLION dollars.

Emmanuel Nwude is a Nigerian fraud artist who was formerly the Director of Union Bank of Nigeria. In 1995, he defrauded a Brazilian man, Nelson Sakaguchi, who was the Director at the Brazil’s Banco Noroeste. Nwude began his scam by impersonating the then Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Paul Ogwuma. Posing as the governor, he convinced Sakaguchi to invest in a new airport located in Nigeria’s capital, Abuja. In exchange, he asked for a $10 million commission.

The fraud remained undetected until 1997 when a Spanish bank decided to take over the Banco Noroeste Brazil. When an official from the Spanish bank enquired about the large sum of Noroeste’s money which was sitting in the Cayman islands unmonitored, it led to a criminal investigation. It was found that Sakaguchi had paid $242 million in between 1995 to 1998 to Emmanuel Nwude who promised him an airport which actually never existed.

I'm not saying it's her fault... but... it's her fault

Please be wary of those who appear to deserve your sympathy.

@Kestrel, with his long legs, he could probably outrun them all!!

It's the prominence of the article and splash photo that REALLY strike me. " Nigerian " ( bad !! ) , "Japanese woman " ( victim !!) . Not excusing ALL bad people, she lost $200k from all other worldwide victims who made the total of $46 M. The " news " splash !!!.

She was aiding in the commission of a crime.

Victim-blaming raises its ugly head once again.

"I wouldn't fall for that..."

"How stupid must you be..."

No. Victim blaming is more like,

"It's her fault."

Victim-blaming raises its ugly head once again.

"I wouldn't fall for that..."

"How stupid must you be..."

etc...

We've all seen the Nigerian/Ghanian/etc... prince/princess emails offering millions in return for whatever. Some people are more gullible than others... it doesn't make them stupid, just naive.

As for EK... she fell in love with someone who turned out to be a scammer... I suppose there are dating and pen pal sites the world over which are full of scammers. Some of you may be scammers, or not who you pretend to be, or even victims of scammers... who knows...

If it isn't Nigerian, it's Russian. In my 30 years of using the Internet, it hasn't changed.

Theres one born every minute.

Why is that poor man in chains?

Should have known better.

Ladies, if a bloke you've met online doesn't bombard you with dick-pics within a week or 2 nor ask you to send nudes, chances are, it's a scam!!

Pervs or scammers, your call!

Women. Welcome to the world of being a sucker. Men have been in that world for far too long.

Sadly, there are many sick people that prey on people this way. They take, take, take, and then run away. They don’t care about the hole they place their victims in.

It ended with the woman $200,000 poorer and on the verge of bankruptcy after borrowing money from her sister, ex-husband and friends

She shamelessly borrowed money from her ex-HUSBAND to please some guy over the internet? No doubt she probably said it was for a "medical emergency for her dying mother" or something.

i am supposed to receive all my million from Nigeria very soon

Hey, I'm supposed to get that money! Along with $12.5M (USD) from South Africa, $20.5M (USD) from Burkina Faso, undisclosed amounts from Libya (Qaddafi's daughter), Benin, Jordan, Ghana, and various PowerBall lotteries here in the US. I get all choked up knowing there are so many kind people around the world who just want to give me money.

Thanks Raymond Reddington!

A fool and her money...

zichi, not only women fall for these scams and has nothing to do with intelligence. But is sure makes a better media story to have a poor, lonely, fragile, woman be the victim of these scams than those stupid horny men falling for a "russian mail" bride fraud. Everybody that is lonely can make these stupid mistakes.

Most of the defendants are Nigerians.

Obviously they have moved on from the Nigeran Prince email scam

donno what you all talking about, i am supposed to receive all my million from nigeria very soon, as soon as i transfer another few thousands....have some trust in humans !

I wonder how low your IQ have to be to fall for one of those obvious traps.

Invalid CSRF

If the story sounds too good to be true, then it probably isn't

The other thing they do is fall in love with a Japanese woman , have a great job, lots of money - but lose their wallet , and for some reason can’t access any money from everywhere so if she could just send a few thousand bucks .....

or they get stuck in a Harbor and can’t pay the customs tax and again for some reason nobody can loan them the money - but once they pay it they’ll get hundreds of thousands.

The problem is a woman can think you’re horrible if you say “you know I just don’t believe this story”.

because the woman is convinced she’s met a wonderful rich handsome sincere guy - who she still hasn’t actually met ....

sad.

F.K should of used that money to get her head examined.

We have enough fraudulent behavior going on in L.A. I am glad the FBI got these fools. The Japanese woman who got fooled into aiding criminal acts, well.....

Was one of those arrested a Nigerian Prince who has my 10 million dollars?