Reported yesterday, federal prosecutors in TX won a decided victory against two Nigerian Romance Scammers who lived outside of Houston. Both Kunle Mutiu Amoo and Lanre Sunday Adeoba pleaded guilty to ripping off their victim of approximately $2M in a Facebook scam. They pretended to be South African Diplomats who were involved in a $42M construction project.
Sentencing is set for September 22nd. The maximum penalty is a 20 year jail term and $250K fine. Generally nothing can be done to seek justice for 419 scams but in this case, the offenders lived domestically. They imported their scamming practices with them when they immigrated to the US. A spokesperson for the FBI in Houston said they’d seen a huge rise in romance scams on Facebook and other social media sites.
Nigerian Romance Scams are so prevalent that the US Diplomatic Mission to Nigeria issued a warning against them. Here’s the link.
Both the FBI and the Justice Department provide complaint services if you think you’ve been victimized through an online romance scam, also referred to as a “Confidence Scam.” If you or someone you know has been victimized:
- Use this link to contact the FBI
- Use this link to contact the Justice Department then click on Scams and Rip-Offs, then Romance Scams.
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