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Fraudster conned eye surgeon out of £352k (From Basildon Recorder)
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Fraudster conned eye surgeon out of £352k
6:00am Wednesday 10th February 2010
A NIGERIAN fraudster who conned £352,000 out of a leading eye surgeon in an internet scam has been ordered to repay her £53,400.
Chinaenye Mokelu, 44, of Argent Street, Grays, sent out spam e-mail asking UK bank account holders to help him transfer his “$300million fortune” to Britain.
Consultant Fawzia Ashkanani replied and was duped into transferring £352,000 into Mokelu’s bank accounts in return for a slice of his fortune.
Mrs Ashkanani, of Dumfries, in Scotland, even met up with Mokelu in London where he showed her a suitcase full of fake cash.
Mokelu was jailed for five years in June after admitting conspiracy to defraud.
He appeared at Basildon Crown Court and was ordered to repay Mrs Ashkanani £53,400, the total value of his assets recovered by police, which included £20,000 cash.
Andrew Fraser, prosecuting, said police were aware Mokelu had transferred an additional £94,000 to a bank account in Nigeria last year.
Mr Fraser said: “The Crown say there has been very little by Mr Mokelu to help police in recovering this money.”
Karl Volz, mitigating, said: “This money was sent to Nigeria over a year ago to an account which was not in Mr Mokelu’s name.
“The suggestion this money is now available to him, while he is in custody, is absolutely absurd.”
Recorder Humfrey Malins agreed any notion of recovering the cash was “fanciful”.
He said it was clear Mokelu was not the “Mr Big” in the scam and the resources needed to track down the cash would be too expensive to the taxpayer.
He said: “In the real world it is goodbye to that money.
“I suspect even if Mr Mokelu knew where that money was, the chances of him laying his hands on it is minimal.
“By now there is a good chance it is winging its way to the Cayman Islands, or somewhere like that.”
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Your Say Your Basildon
EthanEdwards, St Osyth says...
9:03am Wed 10 Feb 10
At least you don't have to leave the country to meet genuine '419' scammers.
Perhaps a respected eye consultant should try doing much more reading. I get about a dozen of these 419 emails a week.
Try reading www.419eater.com or www.scambuster419.co
.uk or www.419scam.org or www.ebolamonkeyman.c
om
There are LOADS of other sites warning you about this well known scam.
They can also be great fun if you answer one of these emails I've strung one or two of them along for weeks. Choose a name set up a Email account and their greed is hiarious. I was 'Ron Jeremy' a Oklahoma Oil executive. Great fun.
the_oracle, South East England says...
9:05am Wed 10 Feb 10
The very nature of these emails suggests the money is dubious in its origines so that alone should be reason enough to ignore them.
undertaker, crays hill says...
10:13am Wed 10 Feb 10
Radar Ears, Southend on Sea says...
10:22am Wed 10 Feb 10
It beggars belief, doesn't it, that someone who is supposed to be highly intelligent (must be, to have passed exams as an eye-surgeon) would be taken in by an e-mail from a complete stranger!
As these have been doing the rounds for years, it's surprises me that she was taken in by it.
I agree with "the oracle", to have over a quarter of a million at the ready to send to a complete stranger, hoping to get a share of £300 million, just shows you how greedy some people are.
boom, basildon says...
2:03pm Wed 10 Feb 10
This is earth calling, Leigh on Sea says...
9:46pm Wed 10 Feb 10
undertaker wrote:Someone had to say it .... spot on!
You would have thought an eye surgeon would have seen this one coming.
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nigeltheduck, Southend says...
7:44am Wed 10 Feb 10