A man has been sentenced to two years imprisonment for his part in an online scam which enticed victims, a doctor, an accountant and a hotel owner, to part with millions of pounds.
Following an investigation by the TSG Payback team, Michael Ugboaja was sentenced at Inner London Crown Court for laundering over £470,000.
The 48 year old, of Beckton East London, was part of a chain of fraudsters who defrauded their victims in creative ways.
One of his victims, a doctor from Canada flew in to give evidence during the trial. A member of an internet dating site, she was persuaded to hand over more than $100,000 to a man she met online claiming to be a diamond trader.
An accountant from Melbourne, Australia, also handed over 1.7 million Australian dollars in order to secure a non-existent £500 million dollar loan.
Over the course of 14 months he paid out large amounts of money into various bank accounts to secure the loan. He even travelled to England and Dubai for spurious business meetings with the conmen. In the UK, he was taken to a virtual office in Hertfordshire where he was shown a trunk containing a large quantity of cash – part of the plan to make the fraud more convincing.
In a separate scheme, a Swiss hotel owner was conned out of £11,000 in a fraudulent oil investment.
Ugboaja, who was convicted on June 14, opened two business accounts to transfer money through. Over a period of four months £470,000 was paid into the business account from the fraud victims. This money was then withdrawn in cash and handed over in increments to an unknown man in a supermarket car park. The money has never been recovered.
PS Dean Murray, of the Territorial Support Group Payback Unit based at Chadwell Heath, said: “Michael Ugboaja was the final link in a sophisticated international team of fraudsters. This fraud has left two people on the verge of bankruptcy and the Canadian victim gave a TV interview in Canada to warn people of these Internet based scams.”
Those who masterminded the scheme have yet to be traced.
