Lonely Woman Duped £1.6m By Dating Site Nigerian Conmen....

A lonely heart woman was tricked into handing over £1.6million to a gang of dating site conmen who used a copy of pick-up manual The Game and posed as a wealthy engineer to win her affections.

 

The woman in her 40s from Hillingdon, north west London, thought she was in an online relationship with a divorcee father-of-one called Christian Anderson.

But little did she know she was actually being tricked by a gang of fraudsters including Ife Ojo, 31, and Olusegun Agbaje, 43, who duped her into 'loaning' them a staggering £1.6million, telling her the money was needed to free up inheritance so they could start a new life together.

A lonely heart was tricked into handing over £1.6million to a gang of dating site conmen, including Ife Ojo, 31, (left) and Olusegun Agbaje, 43, (right) who used a copy of pick-up manual The Game and posed as a wealthy engineer online to win her affections

She had even met with someone pretending to be Anderson's lawyer and travelled to Amsterdam to  discuss money that was supposedly being held in a vault, as well as searching for houses where she could live with Anderson once the money came through.

Ojo and Agbaje were arrested at Agbaje's home in Hornchurch, Essex. When police searched Nigerian student Ojo's home in Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, they found a copy of Neil Strauss's bestselling dating manual The Game with them, which reveals the the skills and techniques used by 'pick up gurus' to seduce women. They also used a book of love poems called For You, My Soul Mate: Loving Messages To Share With A Very Special Person, by Douglas Pagels to help them seduce the unsuspecting woman. 

NHS administrative assistant Agbaje and Ojo had been due to be sentenced after they admitted conspiracy to defraud following an investigation by the Metropolitan Police's specialist cyber crime and fraud detectives - FALCON.

However, the case at Basildon Crown Court was adjourned until January 8 by Judge Jonathan Black. Agbaje and Ojo were remanded in custody.

 

Police found a copy of Neil Strauss's bestselling dating manual The Game (left) when they searched Ojo's home. The men also used a book of love poems called For You, My Soul Mate: Loving Messages To Share With A Very Special Person, by Douglas Pagels (right) to help them seduce the unsuspecting woman

'The suspects showered them with compliments and confided their seemingly innermost secrets to them. In many cases, the suspects were talking to their victims online or over the phone for hours every day.'

In this case, the woman had met 'Anderson' on a dating website in February 2014.

After a few weeks of chatting online she met a man pretending to be Anderson 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. 

A few weeks later he told her that he loved her, and that he was having a difficult time working on a project in Benin, Africa. 

He said that he wanted come home to be with her but first he needed some specialist machinery so he could finish the project. 

He asked her for a loan to pay import duty for the machinery, and she dutifully paid more than £30,000 into the business account of his supposed personal assistant, a man allegedly called Brandon Platt.

However, 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. 

He told her that he wanted to use the inheritance money to set up a life with the victim, but that there were fees for freeing up the inheritance money, which included costs for holding it in a vault in Amsterdam and $170,000 to pay for a non-existent 'anti-terrorist certificate' so that the money could be deposited at a bank. 

By this time, the victim had been convinced that they would live together, and had even been looking for a home for them to buy. 

She met with someone claiming to be Anderson's lawyer, and even travelled to an office in Amsterdam to meet a man calling himself Dr Spencer, who was supposedly responsible for holding the money in a vault. 

Between March and December 2014, the victim paid £1.6million into numerous bank accounts, with the money then transferred into various personal accounts, including £35,000 to the bank accounts of Ojo and Agbaje. 

The victim doubted the authenticity of Anderson's stories on numerous occasions but every time she asked for proof he sent false documentation or made up excuses for why he could not send her evidence. 

In January of this year, the woman reported the crime to FALCON, which carried out a financial investigation. 

They identified Agbaje as one of the recipients of the victim's money and went his home address where they found him with Ojo.

Both men were arrested and their homes searched. At Ojo's home, they found a laptop containing records of the victim's conversation with Anderson, a memento book seemingly sent to Anderson by another victim and a copy of the book The Game.

FALCON established that between them the paid had received £35,000 of the victim's cash.

Detectives are continuing to seek out other members of the gang and try to identify any other victims.

HOW TO AVOID DATING SITE SCAMS

The Metropolitan Police's advice to anyone talking to a potential partner online is:

See through the sob stories:

Con artists will tell you tales to pluck at your heartstrings, with a view to gaining your trust and sympathy. Sometimes they will ask for money to help them through a difficult situation. These are lies to get you to send them money.

Don't be fooled by a photo:

Anyone can send a picture which supports a story they are spinning. Scammers will quite often use the same story and send the same photo to multiple victims. You may be able to find evidence of the same scam posted on anti-fraud websites by other victims.

Keep your money in your bank account:

Never send money abroad to a person you have never met or do not know well, no matter how strongly you feel about them. No one who loves you will ask you to hand over your life savings and get into debt for them.

Question their questions:

Suspects will pay you a lot of compliments and ask you a lot of questions about your life, yet tell you very little themselves beyond a few select tales. Never disclose your personal details, such as bank details - this leaves you vulnerable to fraud.

Don't keep quiet:

Sometimes scammers will ask you to keep your relationship secret but this is just a ruse to stop you talking to someone who will realise you are being scammed. If you are concerned that you are being scammed, stop communicating with the fraudsters and report it to police immediately.

Edited from Dailymail.

Na wah...Xmas in Jail for them!