Jail for two Nigerians who recruited money mules
They developed romantic relationships with S'porean women before using them
Two Nigerian men who were members of a transnational love scam based in Malaysia got into relationships with Singaporean women, who then acted as their money mules.
Awolola Oladayo Opeyemi, now 37, recruited two women - Suhaili Suparjo and Faridah Rashid. He also fathered a child with Suhaili.
The other Nigerian, Awolola Gbolahan Ayobami, now 40, recruited Norhafiza Samsudin, who also bore him a child.
They committed their offences from 2017 to 2019.
Yesterday, Opeyemi was sentenced in a Singapore district court to five years' jail after he pleaded guilty to three counts of working with others to receive the benefits of criminal conduct linked to more than $550,000 in losses.
Ayobami, who admitted to two counts of working with others to receive the benefits of criminal conduct linked to $150,000 in losses, was ordered to spend four years and two months behind bars.
Each man also pleaded guilty to one count of being part of a conspiracy to obstruct the course of justice. The cases involving the three women are still pending.
Deputy Public Prosecutor Jordon Li said the two Nigerians had entered Malaysia to purportedly further their education. Instead, they went on to play integral roles in helping the syndicate with its criminal activities.
The two Nigerians worked with a scammer known only as "Fola", who would cheat the victims. They would recruit money mules to assist in receiving the monies from the victims.
Arrangements would then be made for the money mules to hand over the ill-gotten gains to the pair in Malaysia.
He told Deputy Presiding Judge S. Jennifer Marie that the ruse involved the scammer getting to know the victims using false personas on the Internet.
DPP Li added: "The scammer would cultivate a romantic relationship with the victim, gaining their trust. The scammer then made requests for money from the victims, using various false premises."
Opeyemi got to know Suhaili in 2016 and she allowed him to use one of her bank accounts to receive cash on his behalf. The account was later frozen after authorities here received reports from love scam victims. In 2017, he asked her to open other bank accounts and she complied.
Between June and October that year, two accounts received more than $450,000 from multiple scam victims from Singapore, Canada and Macau.
The prosecutor said Suhaili would withdraw the monies from the accounts from time to time before travelling to Malaysia to hand them over to Opeyemi.
The court heard that in 2018, Suhaili was handed ill-gotten gains totalling more than $100,000 and she later travelled to Malaysia to hand the monies to Opeyemi.
Ayobami committed his offences in a similar manner.
In an operation on April 16, 2019, the Malaysian police arrested Opeyemi and Ayobami in Kuala Lumpur.
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