Nigerian Internet scammers convicted in Mississippi
Publish date: 15 February 2017
Issue Number: 1670
Diary: Legalbrief eLaw
Category: General
Three Nigerian nationals extradited from SA have been convicted of wide-ranging Internet fraud schemes in a US court, unravelling a large network of international Internet scammers. A report on the News24 site notes that Oladimeji Ayelotan, Rasaq Raheem and Femi Mewase face hundreds of years in prison after being found guilty by a federal jury in the Southern District of Mississippi. A total of 21 people in the US, Nigeria and SA have been charged in the case. According to testimony and evidence presented in the three-week trial, the trio participated in numerous complex Internet-based financial fraud schemes, including romance scams, re-shipping scams, fraudulent cheque scams, work-at-home scams as well as bank, financial and credit card account takeovers.