Nigerian authorities have arrested a 28-year-old man suspected of defrauding an Australian widow in a fake online romance, a year after she was found dead during a trip to South Africa where she intended to meet him.
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) said it had arrested Orowo Omokoh on January 28 on suspicion of conning 67-year-old Jette Jacobs out of $90 000 after they met on an internet dating site.
Jacobs, a grandmother, flew from her home in Western Australia to meet Omokoh in South Africa last February, but died four days later under circumstances still being investigated by South African police.
Omokoh had arrived in the country two days before her death.
“We received a complaint about the fraudulent relationship from police in South Africa. We tracked him for a while, then we closed in,” EFCC spokesperson Wilson Uwujaren said.
He stressed the Nigerian commission only had power to investigate the alleged fraud committed on its territory but would co-operate with South African police on any extradition request.
Fake online romances are common form of advance fee fraud in Nigeria – generically called “419 scams”, after the section in the penal code. Authorities say they have become more popular as the classic emails promising impossibly good business deals become less effective.
In Nigeria, internet shopping is not all that it might seem. Take Sheffy Bello-Osagie’s recent purchase of a hair product. Instead of punching in her card details online, she emailed the seller for account details. Then she went to the bank to deposit the amount in cash.
“The only thing I buy online in Nigeria is airline tickets, and that’s because the walk-in option isn’t exactly appealing,” said Bello-Osagie, referring to the chaotic queues that are inescapable for most people in Nigeria.
Forecast to become the world’s fourth most populous nation by 2050, the country has a growing middle class and a thriving consumer sector. But parallel online growth has been stifled by deeply rooted fears about online scams.
Rolling Stone magazine won’t allow Nigerian addresses to access its site, and Apple won’t allow Nigerian-issued credit cards to buy its products online – for fear of being scammed. PayPal, the world’s biggest online payment processor, refuses to operate in Nigeria.
So Nigerian dotcom entrepreneurs have to be creative. Sim Shagaya, who hopes his company, Konga.com, will become Africa’s answer to Amazon, has an unusual solution: once orders are placed online, he sends out an employee on a motorbike or tuk-tuk to collect the payment from the waiting buyers.
(Screenshot of Konga.com)
One of his collectors, Peter Nelson, said: “I have to explain to all our first-time buyers that we are not one of those fraudulent online companies who are going to disappear tomorrow.”
After several visits, many shoppers were prepared to swap cash payments for his portable card swipe machine, Nelson said. Only a minority entered their card details directly on to the site.
Another entrepreneur, Tayo Oviosu, is trying to build Nigeria’s version of PayPal, MyPaga. “We can sit around or we can do something about it. If other companies won’t come to Nigeria, it’s an opportunity for local businesses,” he said.
(Screenshot of MyPaga.com)
Years of soaring economic growth has failed to translate into jobs for a bulging youth population, providing a steady supply of scammers who see it as a legitimate job.
In a downtown Lagos neighbourhood, John, a Yahoo-Yahoo boy – so-called because of many scammers’ earlier preference for using Yahoo! emails – lounges outside between bouts of frenzied fraud work at internet cafes.
Shy and softly spoken, John spends his days trawling Facebook to scrape together his undergraduate fees. He finds an online “date”, then dupes her into giving him money.
But he says an average of two snares a month brings in scant reward compared with the earnings of those who work with a network of international partners, typically based in the US or Malaysia.
“They have nice cars, fine clothes, women. For me, this is just a way to survive,” he said.
As Konga.com’s motorbike riders sweep through overcrowded Lagos, they might notice a curious graffito scrawled on thousands of houses: “Beware of 419 [advance fee frauds]! This house is NOT for sale!” It is a warning against charlatan agents who “sell” temporarily vacant houses to multiple prospective buyers.
