Two Nigerians whose names are Ife Ojo, 31, and Olusegun Agbaje, 43, have been jailed for persuading a divorcee to part with £1.6m to help fictional engineer she met on Match.com
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| match.com |
The report has it that a woman with two kids (name withheld for legal reasons) met unknown man named Christian Anderson on Match.com( a dating website) and was bamboozled into falling in love with poems and quotes by Anderson. The relationship grew by day and the gullible woman was persuaded by Anderson, supposedly a well-to-do divorced oil
industry engineer with two children, to transfer huge sums of cash
between March and December 2014 only to discover he did not exist.
The guardian gathered that Ife Ojo,31, an accountancy student from Peterborough in Cambridgeshire, and Olusegun Agbaje, 43, an administrative assistant from Hornchurch in Essex, who however, pleaded guilty to the charges, were on Friday, sentenced to 34months and 32months imprisonment respectively.
The presiding judge, Jonathan Black, said: “The victim was an intelligent businesswoman but she was also vulnerable because she was recently divorced.”
Lesley Bates, prosecuting, said the victim had borrowed money from friends and family, believing it would be paid back when Anderson came to live with her.
She added: “She has since experienced stress, cries, is depressed and unable to trust people or tell them what has happened through her embarrassment. She has been unable to tell her friends and family and finds herself isolated by the fact she was taken advantage of by the way that she was.”
The court heard she met the man pretending to be Anderson in person once. She described him to police as a “handsome white man”.
Their relationship blossomed through conversations almost every day on Skype and Yahoo messenger services. These were usually text conversations or over a poor connection, meaning she could not see Anderson. The victim also received flowers and chocolates purporting to be from him.
He persuaded her to pay money to his personal assistant, Brandon Platt, saying it would help him complete a project in Benin, Nigeria and allow him to come to live with her in the UK.
The guardian also gathered that Police identified Agbaje and, when they raided his home, found him with Ojo. At Ojo’s home they found a laptop containing records of the victim’s conversations and a “seduction kit” including a poetry book, For My Soulmate, and dating manual, The Game.
Bank records showed Ojo received £10,000, most of which was used to make payments to Rolex and Lexus. A total of £35,000 was paid into a bank account controlled by Agbaje.
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,” he said.
The guardian gathered that Ife Ojo,31, an accountancy student from Peterborough in Cambridgeshire, and Olusegun Agbaje, 43, an administrative assistant from Hornchurch in Essex, who however, pleaded guilty to the charges, were on Friday, sentenced to 34months and 32months imprisonment respectively.
The presiding judge, Jonathan Black, said: “The victim was an intelligent businesswoman but she was also vulnerable because she was recently divorced.”
Lesley Bates, prosecuting, said the victim had borrowed money from friends and family, believing it would be paid back when Anderson came to live with her.
She added: “She has since experienced stress, cries, is depressed and unable to trust people or tell them what has happened through her embarrassment. She has been unable to tell her friends and family and finds herself isolated by the fact she was taken advantage of by the way that she was.”
The court heard she met the man pretending to be Anderson in person once. She described him to police as a “handsome white man”.
Their relationship blossomed through conversations almost every day on Skype and Yahoo messenger services. These were usually text conversations or over a poor connection, meaning she could not see Anderson. The victim also received flowers and chocolates purporting to be from him.
He persuaded her to pay money to his personal assistant, Brandon Platt, saying it would help him complete a project in Benin, Nigeria and allow him to come to live with her in the UK.
The guardian also gathered that Police identified Agbaje and, when they raided his home, found him with Ojo. At Ojo’s home they found a laptop containing records of the victim’s conversations and a “seduction kit” including a poetry book, For My Soulmate, and dating manual, The Game.
Bank records showed Ojo received £10,000, most of which was used to make payments to Rolex and Lexus. A total of £35,000 was paid into a bank account controlled by Agbaje.
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,” he said.
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