Three Nigerians Jailed As Irish Woman Loses €254,000 Life Savings in Romance Fraud
Three Nigerian men have been jailed for their role in a romance fraud in which a woman in her sixties lost her life savings.
The three men were arrested by Gardaí attached to the National Economic Crime Bureau after the woman became suspicious concerning a man whom she had been messaging online.
Dublin Circuit Criminal Court heard that a woman, who does not wish to be named, met a man calling himself Neil Turner on the dating website Plenty of Fish in November 2019.
The two began to message each other romantically, and over 800 pages of messages were downloaded by gardaí. Gardai linked the fake profile of Neil Turner to three Nigerian nationals living in Ireland.
Omowale Owolabi (31) of Kentswood Court in Navan pleaded guilty to theft. Raak Sami Sadu (32) of Lohunda Downs, Clonsilla, Dublin 15, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit fraud, and Samson Ajayi pleaded guilty (33) of Park Wood, Grangerath in Co Meath pleaded guilty to three money laundering charges.
Judge Martin Nolan sentenced Owolabi to three years and three months in prison. He sentenced Ajayi to two and a half years in prison and Sadu to three years in prison.
The court heard that the fraudsters, using the fake profile, told the woman that Turner had business dealing with oil and gas off the coast of Cork. He also told the woman that he was due to receive a large inheritance.
Turner began to ask the woman for money to help him with his business. In November 2019, she transferred the first of ten payments to Turner. Over the course of six months, the woman transferred just over €254,000 to who she believed was Neil Turner.
Garda John McKenna told Eoghan Cole, BL, prosecuting, that Turner asked the woman to go to Dubai for business as he could not travel due to his work on an oil rig. She was told that her expenses would be reimbursed, and she booked her flights and accommodation and travelled to Dubai in 2019.
The woman was met in Dubai by a group who showed her a bundle of cash, which was told $3.25 million in US dollars. They asked her for ID and for $650,000 to release the funds.
She refused to pay the money and said she did not have it. The men told her they would be unable to do business with her and brought her back to her hotel.
The court heard that the woman became frightened after this experience and raised this with Turner.