8 MORE VICTIMS OF ROMANCE CON
Gardai fear others looking for love may have fallen for date app scam
GARDAI identified at least eight other victims of a cunning romance scam which saw one woman lose her €250,000 life savings.
This week witnessed the first convictions for the crime in an Irish court with three men who are suspected of working for the notorious Black Axe international crime gang sent down.
But the Irish Mirror has learned the Garda National Economic Crime Bureau is continuing the probe into other suspected scammers, uncovering seven more victims in Ireland and one in the UK. It is understood the Irish victims had yet to hand over any money but the woman in Britain had been fleeced.
Officers are now working on identifying more suspects and believe there could be more victims.
A source said: “This is highly organised crime and the investigation is moving on to other aspects now where other people have been identified – both victims and other suspects.”
Most of more than €250,000 lost by the woman targeted by the gang who were jailed this week went to bogus companies in Turkey and Vietnam.
From there, the cash was taken out and products were bought before being shipped to Nigeria – where the Black Axe gang originates – to be sold on, making the money legitimate. The three men were arrested after the woman made a report to the GNECB in 2020 when she became suspicious about a man she had been messaging online.
Dublin Circuit Criminal Court heard the woman, who does not wish to be named, met a man calling himself Neil Turner on the dating website Plenty of Fish in November 2019.
They began to message each other romantically, and more than 800 pages of messages were downloaded by gardai.
Officers linked Turner’s fake profile to three Nigerian nationals living in Ireland.
Omowale Owolabi, 31, Raak Sami Sadu, 32, and 33-year-old Samson Ajayi told the woman Turner had business dealing with oil and gas off the coast of Cork. He also told the woman he was due a large inheritance.
Turner began to ask the woman for money to help him with his business.
Over a six month period, she transferred almost €254,000 to who she believed was Turner.
Investigators tracked the fraudsters down using the email addresses and the bank accounts and went to their home addresses.
Gardai seized several laptops and mobile phones and found user names and passwords for the Neil Turner profile on the Plenty of Fish website.
Owolabi was jailed for three years and three months, Ajayi for two-and-a -half years, and Sadu for three years.
‘BLACK AXE GANG’ ROBBED WOMAN
IN ROMANCE CON