GULFPORT // Seven Africans admitted their part in a global fraud network that used online dating sites to reach potential victims, the US department of justice said on Friday.
Six Nigerian men and a South African woman pleaded guilty this week to conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud, department spokesman Peter Carr said.
They are among 21 defendants charged in federal court in Gulfport, Mississippi.
The investigation started in September 2011, when a Biloxi woman told police that a man she had met through a dating website sent her cellphones to repackage and reship, according to court documents.
She allowed homeland security investigators to use her email account to correspond with the man.
Investigators learned that the conspiracy involved more than 200 people worldwide, led from South Africa and Nigeria. Warrants were issued to investigate 360 email accounts, obtaining about a million messages.
The conspirators used email scripts to gain victims’ affection and persuade them to send money and participate in other fraud schemes, according to a statement of facts submitted to court with the guilty pleas.
It said those included depositing and then wiring someone else money from US$29 million in cheques and other monetary instruments that turned out to be counterfeit, repackaging and forwarding merchandise bought with more than 39,000 stolen credit card numbers, and using hundreds of thousands of dollars of counterfeit postal and private carrier shipping labels.
The US Postal Service alone lost $300,000.
The group also took over victims’ bank accounts and used several layers of “e-mules” to launder money.
Those who pleaded guilty this week were identified as Rhulane Fionah Hlungwane, 26, of South Africa, and Nigerians Gabriel Oludare Adeniran, 30; Olusegun Seyi Shonekan, 34; Taofeeq Olamilekan Oyelade, 32; Olufemi Obaro Omoraka, 27; Anuoluwapo Segun Adegbemigun, 40; and Adekunle Adefila, 41.
All but Adefila also pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit identity theft, access device fraud and theft of government funds.
Four of the 14 others charged in Mississippi have pleaded guilty, one is scheduled for trial on January 30 on new charges, two have died, two are awaiting extradition from Nigeria and two remain fugitives, Sheila Wilbanks, spokeswoman for US attorney Gregory Davis in Jackson, Mississippi, said.
* Associated Press
