I had No Plans to Marry Her, Says Man Who Defrauded American of N58m

Yunusa Okonkwo and Henry Ogu

  They met on one of the popular dating sites on the internet, a usual sight these days, and they clicked it off. Although they were faced with the challenge of race and borders, she believed love could conquer all, or so she thought.  Like a woman in love, she believed whatever story he fed her, hook, line and sinker especially as she was in far away America, while he was in Nigeria.

Throughout the months they dated, she lived on proclamations of his undying love and so it was easy to manipulate her feelings to suit his needs. When he regaled her with tales that he was in trouble in Nigeria and needed some financial assistance, she willingly obliged him, after all they would get married someday she reasoned.

He manipulated and collected the sum of N58million before she realised there was no love lust on his part; rather she was his cash cow. And so, the over used cliché ‘love hath no fury like a woman scorned,’ kicked in, and the fury let lose on the cunning fraudster.

After an independent investigation, she got the email address of the Special Fraud Unit (SFU) of the  Nigerian Police, in Milverton, Ikoyi, Lagos and she wrote to them with evidence of transfer of money. With the hard evidence gathered, the unit swung into action and first picked up his accomplice, who led them to  arrest  the alleged fraudster, 29-year-old Henry Ogu.

Ogu, an Amafor – Ishingwa indigene of Umuahia, Abia State and a self-acclaimed director of Raydeus Synergy Nigeria Limited, was arrested alongside his accomplice, 42-year-old Yunusa Okonkwo, a bureau de change operator whose account was used to perpetuate the act.

SFU Public Relations Officer, DSP Ngozi Isintume-Agu, said the duo were arrested based on a petition received by the unit from the victim based in New Jersey, USA, where she alleged that the suspect had defrauded her under the pretext of future marital plans.

She said the victim complained that sometime in April 2013, she met one of the suspects, whom she identified as Agu Henry on a dating site. They had both started a relationship which lasted for months until the suspect manipulated and made her to believe that he was in trouble in Nigeria and needed some financial assistance.

The PRO said the victim sent the sum of 350,000 US dollars to the two account numbers provided by the suspect- a Skye and Eco Bank account numbers-36204796 and 04087350 respectively, belonging to one Faneece Business Services International.

Based on the strength of the petition, the Commissioner of Police (CP) of the unit, Umar Idris, was said to have detailed a team of policemen from the unit to investigate the matter and report back to him. But investigations carried out by the officers showed that the account holder was Yunusa Okonkwo of No. A1 Giwa Road, U. Muazu based in Kaduna. He was subsequently arrested from his hideout and his arrest led to the arrest of the principal suspect, Ogu. 

Isintume-Agu said Agu claimed to be one of the directors of a company called Raydeus Synergy Nigeria Limited and that he had confessed to the alleged crime. She said he also admitted that he sent the account details of Okonkwo to the victim who in turn paid the sum of 295,000 Dollars into the account.

She said further investigations into the identities of the second suspect revealed that Okonkwo, a 42-year- old man who hails from Amuri Nkanu West LGA of Enugu State, is a patent medicine dealer that also runs a Bureau De Change. She said in his confessional statement to the police, he admitted that he is the account holder of Faneece Business Services International and that he provided his two bank accounts for the illicit transactions.

The PRO said he confessed that after receiving the money, he transferred it to the Diamond Bank account of Raydeus Synergy Nigeria Limited (0021206871), provided him by the principal culprit after he converted it to naira and had first deducted his commission of N2 per dollar.
She said, “He corroborated the complainant’s statement that they met on a dating site last year January 2013 and started communicating and exchanging e-mails.  He also confessed that he deceived the victim into believing that he wanted to marry her but was stranded in Nigeria and needed financial assistance.

“He further admitted that he had spent all the money and used N9million to purchase a heavy duty generating plant, which the police have already recovered.  Also he purchased a plot of land for N800,000 along Lagos – Ibadan Expressway and the cash sum of N2million was also recovered from him.

“Although investigation into the matter is on-going, efforts are being intensified towards the recovery of the remaining monies fraudulently obtained from the complainant or the proceeds thereof.”

Meanwhile, Ogu who confessed he had no plans to marry his victim as well as his part in the fraud, admitted he sent the account details of Okonkwo to the victim who in turn paid the sum of 295,000dollars into the account, which Okonkwo converted to naira before paying into his Diamond Bank.

While disclosing that both suspects would soon be charged to court to serve as a deterrent to others, Isintume-Agu said the CP while reassuring the public of the unit’s commitment to fight internet fraudsters, further advised that such cases should be promptly reported to the unit.”