Five Nigerians charged in $242 million '419' fraud trial
Thursday, February 5, 2004 Posted: 5:02 PM EST (2202 GMT)
ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) -- Nigerian prosecutors leveled 86 counts of fraud and conspiracy against five people Thursday for allegedly swindling a Brazilian bank of $242 million, in the biggest crackdown yet on the West African nation's advance-fee fraud or "419" scams.
The five are accused of luring an employee of Sao Paulo's Banco Noroeste into siphoning off the funds from his employer, persuading him he could land a share in a lucrative Nigerian construction contract if he just paid enough handling fees up front.
The five appeared in court in Nigeria's capital, Abuja, in handcuffs to hear the charges Thursday. All the suspects, including housewife Amaka Anajemba, lawyer Obum Osakwe, and businessman Emmanuel Nwude -- described by prosecutors as "a major shareholder" in a leading Nigerian bank -- pleaded innocent.
Penalties for each of the counts range between seven and 10 years.
Four Nigerian companies -- Ocean Marketing, Fynbaz, Emrus, and the African Shelter Bureau -- also accused of involvement in the alleged crime were not represented in court.
Presiding Judge Lawal Gumi entered innocent pleas on behalf of the companies and postponed proceedings until Wednesday, when he will consider requests for bond.
There was mild drama in court when suspect Nzeribe Okoli, while making his plea, declared he would make "shocking revelations" during the trial.
"There are so many hidden things which Nigerians should know," Okoli said before he was interrupted by the judge, who told him to restrict his answers to the questions he was asked.
Nigeria's anti-fraud body, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, alleges in court papers the suspects told the Brazilian bank worker he would receive $13.4 million from an $187 million Nigerian airport contract -- if he invested money up front.
The bank worker allegedly dug illegally into his bank's funds, transferring the $242 million -- in segments as high as $4.75 million at a time -- to accounts around the world designated by the suspects, the papers showed.
Nigeria has gained global notoriety as a base for such advance-fee fraud, known as '419' schemes after the section of the country's criminal code that prohibits fraud.
In most of the cases, scam artists proposition victims with e-mails claiming to have millions of dollars from inflated contracts, the estates of dead dictators, or other illicit proceeds, and seeking help to transfer the money abroad.
The victims are then made to pay never-ending "service fees" and other charges -- the object of the scams.
Nuhu Ribadu, who heads the commission set up by President Olusegun Obasanjo's government in December 2002 to combat sophisticated fraud and money-laundering rings, told a news conference on Wednesday he intended to use this case to prove that "no one is above the law."
The case was also the subject of criminal investigations in Switzerland, Britain, the United States and Brazil, Ribadu said.
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