Two Nigerian men who swindled a woman out of N464
million in a love scam by using a fictional character to
contact her on a dating website have been jailed.
The woman thought she was corresponding with a man
called Christian Anderson, and she gave him money to
fund a supposed business project.
The fake persona was created by Ife Ojo and Olusegun
Agbaje, who both pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud
in a UK court.
Ojo was sentenced to 34 months in prison and Agbaje to
32 months for being involved in the love scam.
The victim of the fraud, a woman in her 40s from London,
struck up a correspondence with the fictitious Anderson
through Match.com.
She was persuaded to pay money to his personal
assistant in order to help him complete a project in Benin
so that he could come to live with her in the UK.
Some of her payments were worth over N7 million.
Prosecutor Lesley Bates said the victim borrowed money
from friends and family, believing it would be paid back
when Anderson came to live with her.
“She [the victim] has since experienced stress, cries, is
depressed and unable to trust people,” Bates said.
Police identified Agbaje, 43, from Hornchurch, London,
when they raided his home, finding him with Ojo, 31.
At Ojo’s home they found a laptop containing records of
the victim’s conversation and a seduction kit including the
poetry book For My Soulmate and a dating manual called
The Game.
John Femi-Ola, mitigating for Ojo, said his client was
originally from Nigeria and had been introduced to the
scam by Agbaje.
Simon Smith, mitigating for Agbaje, said his role was to
provide a bank account.
“The planning and sophistication of this crime was not his
responsibility.”
The court heard the victim met somebody pretending to be
Anderson in person once, describing him as “a handsome
white man”.
The police are still working to identify others involved,
including the person who posed as Anderson.