If you’re thinking about getting into the romance scam game, you may want to think again, after one such scammer was sentenced this week to a whopping 25 years behind bars.
There is a perception that romance scammers are rarely brought to justice, or if they are caught, often get far lighter sentences than they deserve. This in part may be true. Such scammers often operate from foreign countries with justice systems that are less effective and consistent at tackling various forms of cybercrime.
But this doesn’t always hold true. Just ask Elvis Eghosa Ogiekpolor from Georgia, USA. A persistent romance scammer, he – along with a network of cyber criminals – managed to pocket and funnel millions of dollars in only a few years before being apprehended by law enforcement.
It is worth noting that Ogiekpolor was engaged in other forms of cybercriminal activity as well, including BEC scams. That stands for Business Email Compromise scams, and is where crooks manage to compromise internal business email addresses (or manage to spoof internal business email addresses) in order to trick employees within that company to direct money or goods to the scammers.
According to the US Department of Justice, Ogiekpolor and his network stole 9.5 million dollars in under two years. But now he is paying the price after being handed a 25 year sentence, making it one of the longest custodial sentences handed out for the crime of online fraud in US history.
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According to the DoJ statement, Ogiekpolor operated or opened at least 50 “money mule” business bank accounts – often using co-conspirators – in order to receive his ill-gotten gains. Many of those co-conspirators would later testify against him in court.
Victims of his network’s romance scam dealings also testified, with one telling the court how she was convinced to wire $32,000 to the scammers after her “boyfriend” (actually one of the scammers) needed it because part of the oil rig where he was working needed to be replaced and that his own bank account “had been frozen”.
The long sentence is a win for the good guys, but the reality is that these scammers are notoriously hard to track down and prosecute. That means the best defense is to not fall for these scams in the first place.
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With romance scams, the advice is always the same. Don’t send money to people you’ve never met in the real world! Scammers will commit months and even years developing online relationships with the ultimate goal of scamming victims. Also be especially cautious of online relationships where the person at the other end claims to be working in a different country. More information on avoiding these scams is in our blog post here.
BEC scams are harder to avoid because they can take many different forms and approaches. Businesses need to implement strict security protocols around protecting their internet email system as well as how they approach communication via email in general (i.e. don’t make payments or change sensitive company financial information because “an email told you to.”)