Policemen in Philippines have arrested a Nigerian man accused of scamming women in the country.
Kelechi Christian Ukpabi
The Philippines Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) have arrested one Kelechi Christian Ukpabi over his involvement in romance and fake dollar scam in the country.
He was arrested following a petition from his last victim, Roger, a school principal whom he scammed of P500,000.
Ukpabi was posing as a female member of the United States Army who was assigned to Afghanistan and became Roger’s “online girlfriend”.
He had told Roger that he would send him a dollar equivalent of millions of pesos for the development of an asylum in the Philippines. But before getting the money, Roger must first fix the document and pay the clearance for the money.
Roger paid nearly P500,000 but he became cynical when Ukpabi introduced him to “black dollar” aka fake dollars.
Under “black dollar” or “black money,” the culprits convince their victims that a sealed paper is money that has been painted in order not to be found by the authorities. The victims are encouraged to pay and buy chemicals to remove the dye or colour.
This is not the first time a Nigeria will be arrested for a romance scam aboard, Some Nigerian men were arrested last month in Thailand for preying on gullible women to get their cash with the promise of engaging them in romance dating.
Speaking while briefing reporters at the Police station in the Khao San area of Bangkok in Thailand, deputy tourist police bureau commissioner, Surachet Hakpal also known Big Joke in the Thai media, said the Nigerian nationals, who are “Romance Scammers” plytheir trades on Facebook and other social media platforms and they have been arrested.
The Nigerian men are identified as Emeka Celestine Eze, 31, and 44-year-old Oliver Obiora, who pretended to be someone else and conned a Khamphaeng Phet woman out of a million baht.
He said that the suspects after gaining the confidence and love of a woman, would tell her they had sent some expensive gifts to her, but she would need to make some money transfer before she could receive the gifts from customs.
She would then be contacted by a fake customs officer, who happened to be an associate of the syndicate. The customs officer would make the woman understand that her goods have been seized by the customs service because they contain some contraband such as money and other items.
She would then be requested to send additional funds to clear the items and have them delivered to her. Before she would realise it was a scam.