Cape Town - A Nigerian man was jailed for nine years on Tuesday by a Cape Town court for his involvement in an online dating scam.
Muyiwa Obafeni appeared in the Bellville Specialised Commercial Crime Court before magistrate Sabrina Sonnenberg. He was found guilty on nine fraud charges, and one of conspiracy to commit fraud.
On the conspiracy charge, he was sentenced to 12 months imprisonment, conditionally suspended for five years.
The case arose from a Chinese man's surfing of the internet in search of an online friendship which, he hoped, would blossom into romance.
The victim ended up chatting to a woman who gave her name as Joy Dlodlo, a New Zealander caring for her ailing mother in Durban.
In fact, Dlodlo was a false online dating profile, created by Obafeni. Joy claimed to own a house in the Strand (in Somerset West), and wished to visit Cape Town for a job interview, and to “fix” her father's Trust Fund.
She wished to meet the Chinese man for coffee in Cape Town, but needed R600 for an air ticket, which he paid.
As their online relationship progressed, Joy offered him 40 percent of her father's Trust Fund, which translated into R16 million. At this stage, Obafeni, pretending to be a man known only as Dennis, entered the picture, together with a bogus home affairs official by the name of Thuletu Mtseke - a false profile also created by Obafeni.
Together, Dennis and Mtseke falsely informed the victim that an additional R21 740 was needed to ensure Dennis's safe travel to Joy with the trust money.
However, the victim had to wrap the money as a gift, and hand the parcel to Dennis's messenger at a KFC outlet, which he did. Defence attorney Howard Andrews said Obafeni wished to compensate the victim for his financial losses, as an indication of remorse. However, the magistrate ruled that this was not true remorse, and that Obafeni only wished to do so now that he had been found guilty and was about to be sentenced.
Prosecutor Juan Agulhas said the case had involved considerable State resources.
The magistrate said the victim had attended a school for special needs, and was easily lured into scams of this kind.
As a result of this, the victim had suffered financially, and this had impacted severely on his integrity and sense of self-worth.
She said the internet had been used to lure victims of online dating scams, and this particular scheme was likely to have impacted internationally as well.
She said this scheme had also damaged South Africa's image.
ANA