An American woman was detained for sixteen months in a hotel in the Nigerian former capital Lagos by a man she had met on Facebook. He had lured her to his homeland with the promise to marry her. The police finally managed to free her last month.
The 46-year-old woman is a retired U.S. government official from Washington, DC. On 13th February 2019, she arrived in Nigeria to meet Chukwuebuka Kasi Obiaku (34): they knew each other through Facebook and would have fallen in love. About three months later, they got married.
The man then held her hostage in a hotel room and extorted her for a total of 48,000 dollars. He also used her bank and credit cards, took control of her bank account and appropriated her monthly pension and other income for fifteen months.
In addition, Obiaku also used her identity to defraud her colleagues and other foreign individuals and companies.
The police were able to free the woman after a tip-off. Obiaku was arrested and charged with cybercrime.
The 34-year-old Obiaku holds a degree in Business Administration and Management and is alleged to have defrauded several people, both in Nigeria and abroad.
The American woman is not the only one to fall prey to a Nigerian crook. Such Nigerian online fraudsters are called ‘Yahoo boys’ and have already taken millions of dollars from victims all over the world.
Last month the Nigerian police rescued a Filipino woman who came to Nigeria to meet a man she had met on Facebook. She, too, was held against her will for six months.
