namfav:

achebe the most famous nigerian?   the most recognizable african name?   , get over yourself bush boy, he is not even the best writer in nigeria, let alone the whole africa, climb off your high horse bush boy

Its possible- Chinua Achebe is probably the most famous Nigerian. However Mandela is the most famous African probably.

namfav:

achebe the most famous nigerian?   the most recognizable african name?   , get over yourself bush boy, he is not even the best writer in nigeria, let alone the whole africa, climb off your high horse bush boy

Who is more recognizable Nigerian besides Chinua Achebe? Talk boy or forever hold your peace! I stand correct with Mandela and probably Desmond Tutu, but Chinua Achebe is the most well known Nigerian. And guess what? He is an Igbo man.

Only northerner, that most people heard about is Farouk Mutallab.

Fela Kuti though would be the second most popular nigerian. met so many people from all over the world who know the real first black president

@ Ezeuche

Stop justifying criminals. A thief is a thief, no matter how you sugar coat it.

Aigbofa:

This is the problem I have with some of you ibos, a thief is a thief no matter what. If you catch a Yoruba man trying to rob you, I swear, I will join you in beating the daylight out of him.
ibos are not like that, all the thief have to say is nna, biko and he is no longer a thief, but your brother!

You took those words out of my mouth! You said the exact words people are afraid to say before being labelled tribal.

SEFAGO:

Fela Kuti though would be the second most popular nigerian. met so many people from all over the world who know the real first black president

And rightfully so. Fela is a true legend. But my question is for that Northern boy.

I personally think we should be considering the death penalty to scammers and looters and money launderers. At least large scale ones.


On a sidenote, You should be also aware that Chinua Achebe is very detribalized. The guy is a genius- infact as arrogant as I am, i dont think i would be half as smart as he is in my life time. The depth of his thinking is just ridiculous. I have never encountered the work of any Nigerian that is as good as that. His commentary on the Biafra war it self was unrivaled. Pure genius. Nevertheless, I think he sees himself, like I do (geniuses think alike you know), as Nigerian first and ethnic group second

SEFAGO:


On a sidenote, You should be also aware that Chinua Achebe is very detribalized. The guy is a genius- infact as arrogant as I am, i dont think i would be half as smart as he is in my life time. The depth of his thinking is just ridiculous. I have never encountered the work of any Nigerian that is as good as that. His commentary on the Biafra war it self was unrivaled. Pure genius. Nevertheless, I think he sees himself, like I do (geniuses think alike you know), as Nigerian first and ethnic group second

Of course Chinua Achebe is very detribalized, but he still considers himself Igbo first and foremost. And there is nothing wrong with that. He was born as an Igbo man and it is part of culture. This is his worldview. We all see through the prisms of our identity.

However, maybe I shouldn't have brought that great man into this discussion. I have too much respect for the man, to use him to gain some "cheap" points. But I just wanted to show, that this is an Igbo man who has represented Nigeria on the world stage since the late 50s.

I trust Nigerians to always put up this holier than thou crap as attitude. Ranting and wailing about how much 'crime' this LEGEND of a guy committed; but if you check their fathers' small wealth very well,  a substantial part came from cutting corners and deals here and there, kickbacks, inflated contracts, profiteering, criminal nepotism, and so on - regardless of whether they worked in a government agency/ministry, or in a bank, construction firm, private business, wherever. And now the offsprings of these hypocrites have gone to school (probably abroad) with their parents' illegally earned wealth and now have big mouths to condemn others' so-called 'crimes' here on NL and elsewhere. SMH.

I have a hard time being a hypocrite in such matters. Show me a so-called successful man or wealthy man in this country of God forsaken hypocrites and I'll show you a terribly corrupt fool whose exploits haven't yet been uncovered, and who as such deems himself to have earned(?) his money through 'dint of hard work'. I bet the likes of Erastus Akingbola and Cecelia Ibru and their brainless, spoilt, Ivy-league educated children would have been the first to denounce Tobechi and other 'fraudsters' as 'never do well' criminals that give Nigerians a bad name. Imagine the konkonbility (apologies to Chiwetalu Agu).

In any case I have never really considered 'yahoo yahoo' and scams like Tobechi's to be egregiously bad; so long as no blood is spilled and no physical tortue is visited upon anyone, I cudn't be bordered. I remember how violent cultism reduced drastically in my school and many schools in naija at the peak of 'yahoo-ism' as the bad boys learnt to channel their raw energies towards making money online and doing 'big boys' in school rather than look for who to kill, maim, despoil, and traumatize. I remember being grateful for that kind of 'positive' effect the 'yahoo yahoo' craze brought about.

Let us take care of the countless murderers, ritualists, occultists, embezzlers, and other such characters that dot our socio-political and economic landscape before  bordering our heads with small 'yahoo yahoo' boys who prefer to use their brains (rightly or wrongly) than resort to armed robbery which is infinitely worse for the rest of society. Any oyinbo that is FOOLISH enough to fall for scammers fantastic antics should privately lick his wounds,  rue his gullibility,  and hope the authorities nab the culprit and recover his money, rather than raise hell about how scammers are the worst category of evil people in the world. In Tobechi's case, it was the banks that were FOOLISH enough to allow loop-holes which he and his crew impressively exploited, and that's why the banks have to reimburse the 'victims' to the last penny.

I'll be the last to condemn Tobechi, heck, I commend his (admittedly infamous) ingenuity! If the violent blood-gangs of the mafia and drug-mobs have been serially idolized in popular culture and movies time and time again, across the world, why would any fool single out Tobechi and his 'innocuous' felonies for hypocritical excoriation of the highest order? Even the Americans themselves that were scammed and the FBI that busted his crew are awed by his ingenuity. But trust Nigerians to be full of hypocritical fury at the drop of a hat.

with the same amount of intelligence, skill, hardwork and determination channeled in a positive direction, this guy could have been even the next bill gates! i dont get, is it just a Nigerian trait to be bad even when we obviously have the talents and potential to do good?

Even though people are writing that they are not glorifying this tobechi guy yet they respect him! guys there is no honour among thieves, whether he's your brother,cousin,friend or husband.

According to this article, Tobechi is an american citizen, he's clever and intelligent without any doubt, with this combination the sky is his limit. There are a lot of nigerians that are high achievers and making positives impact all over the world with their talent and intelligence without having to scam or swindle people.

I live in London and I meet a lot of very intelligent nigerians professionals, musician, programmers,businessmen and women everyday, These people chose to use their talent and brains to do something positive and lift the image of nigeria.
The sad thing is that a lot foreigners are now always cautious of doing business with nigerians, even when it's a legal business just because of the fear of 419.

Nigerians should realise that image matters a lot and goes a long way, that's why foreign tourists will prefer to go on holiday in kenya, tanzania or ghana than come to nigeria! these countries are poorer than nigeria yet they are safer and not as greedy as we are, so we cannot continue to use poverty as excuse for bad behaviour.

Let us take care of the countless murderers, ritualists, occultists, embezzlers, and other such characters that dot our socio-political and economic landscape before bordering our heads with small 'yahoo yahoo' boys who prefer to use their brains (rightly or wrongly) than resort to armed robbery which is infinitely worse for the rest of society.

Ritualist, Yahoo Yahoo boys, trying to judge the magnitude of a crime is difficult. They really are in the same league

Ok lets say a man on the brink of bankruptcy gets scammed by a nigerian. The guy finds out that he has been scammed and that his life is in further ruin. Thats the last straw that cracks the camels back. He heads over to the bridge and jumps off. What makes the scammer morally better than an armed robber.

im not trying to disrespect mister achebe but he is vastly overrated, the greatest african writer is without a shadow of a doubt ahmed baba

by the way if this igbo thief is a genius then every thief in the history of theft is a genius because they all go through the same mindset

@Pro01:
You don't have to stab or shoot someone before you kill them.

I live in London and I know a lot of nigerians that after living in uk for years decided to come back home to start a new life or start a business only to be scammed or 419ed as they say in nigeria. A lot of these scammed people ended up dying depressed or even take their own life. I personally know of a nigerian man that has to come back to London to be admitted to a mental home because he was 419ed of all his savings and investment in nigeria.

ibo boy

you mean dis an old gist?

mwshhhh

sandraa:

you mean dis an old gist?

mwshhhh

As old as 4 years and anytime it comes up on nairaland, they make it look like a fresh crime. Yesterday alone, it hit NL headline twice.

SEFAGO:

Ritualist, Yahoo Yahoo boys, trying to judge the magnitude of a crime is difficult. They really are in the same league
.

Ok lets say a man on the brink of bankruptcy gets scammed by a nigerian. The guy finds out that he has been scammed and that his life is in further ruin. Thats the last straw that cracks the camels back. He heads over to the bridge and jumps off. What makes the scammer morally better than an armed robber.

Lanrefemi:

@Pro01:
You don't have to stab or shoot someone before you kill them.

I live in London and I know a lot of nigerians that after living in uk for years decided to come back home to start a new life or start a business only to be scammed or 419ed as they say in nigeria. A lot of these scammed people ended up dying depressed or even take their own life. I personally know of a nigerian man that has to come back to London to be admitted to a mental home because he was 419ed of all his savings and investment in nigeria.

I would never ever put scammers like Tobechi and the other yahoo boys in the same league as murderers, armed robbers, ritualists, violent criminals and the likes. You better be careful what you wish for; wait until you endure the trauma of being visited by armed robbers: your sister (or wife) violated by 4 gang members in your presence, your dad shot dead, and your two legs shattered with bullets (God forbids!) before you know that it is not the same thing as stupidly falling for one scammer's fantastic schemes. Violent crimes are the ultimate crimes, and I'll happily choose to experience non-violent crimes rather than violent ones if either were inevitable. As an aside, if the US government was given the option of immediately releasing Bernard Madoff from jail (despite his $50b ponzi scheme) in exchange for capturing Bin Laden, don't you think it'll be a no-brainer?

Life is one big battle of wits, everyone is trying to outsmart the other in one way or another everyday; scammers only take this template a notch higher. Anyone that has the misfortune (whether through his own stupidity and gullible greed or through systemic loop-holes like the Tobechi 'victims') should just hope the law catches up with the culprit(s), rather than wishing to have been stabbed in the chest and clubbed to death instead (people should really be careful what they wish for). Of course every crime or misdemeanour has its penalty, and anyone caught commiting any crime should face the due penalty. But that does not mean that one shouldn't recognize the 'opportunity cost' as it were between non-violent scams on one hand, and violent crimes that leave behind imprimaturs of sorrow, tears, blood and death.

FORTUNE -- A luxury suite at the W Hotel
in Dallas is as good a place as any to
conquer the world. At least it seemed that
way in 2007 when Tobechi Onwuhara got
the crew together. They'd meet there
often, seven or eight of them. Some had
nicknames from the Ian Fleming lexicon:
C, Q, and E. Others were called Mookie,
Orji, Uche. They would spread out on
designer sofas and at the wet bar, open
three-ring binders, and fire up laptops
with hard-to-trace wireless cards. On a
nearby table there'd be prepaid
cellphones with area codes taped to
them. A phone for Southern California. A
phone for Northern Virginia. A phone for
any place Onwuhara had found the "good
money."
In those days, the good money wasn't
hard to find. The housing boom had
flooded the country with capital. Lenders
were making promiscuous loans to
unsophisticated borrowers. It was an
ideal environment for Onwuhara, 27, a
brilliant, pug-faced visionary who favored
True Religion jeans and Ed Hardy shirts.
Looking out over the neon skyline of
downtown Dallas, it was easy for the
crew to believe his assurances: He'd
make them rich. When the sun glinted off
one of his $100,000 diamond-encrusted
Audemars Piguet watches, who could
doubt it? Every few months he would buy
a new Maserati or Bentley. He owned
expensive properties in Miami, Dallas,
and Phoenix. He even had a secret love
condo in the W, where scantily clad
women visited in such numbers that one
bellhop became convinced that the first-
generation Nigerian-American was a
porn director.
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The truth was very different. In his
ancestral homeland, Onwuhara might
have been a chief. In America he became
one of the world's most successful
cyberscammers, a criminal genius who
used his talents to filet a poorly regulated
banking and credit system. In less than
three years Onwuhara stole a confirmed
$44 million, according to the FBI, which
believes the total may be anywhere from
$80 million to $100 million. All he needed
was an Internet connection and a
cellphone.
Onwuhara called it "washing." He'd set up
a boiler room in a fancy hotel (the
Waldorf-Astoria was another favorite) to
wash information on wealthy victims.
Then he'd wash bank accounts. One
group in his crew would do online
research using databases and websites
to harvest names, dates of birth, and
mortgage information. They'd build
profiles of victims for a second group,
who would call banks posing as account
holders. The callers cadged security
information and passwords. Then
Onwuhara would breach the accounts
and wire funds from them to a network of
money mules he had established in Asia.
The money would be laundered and
wired back to his accounts in the U.S.
"I call it modern-day bank robbery," says
FBI special agent Michael Nail. "You can
sit at home in your PJs and slippers with a
laptop, and you can actually rob a bank."
Onwuhara specialized in hitting home
equity lines of credit (HELOCs), the
reservoirs of cash that banks make
available to homeowners. Once
Onwuhara gained access to a HELOC, he
could siphon out vast sums in seconds.
His weapon was persuasion. It got him
enough money to start building a
colonnaded fortress in Nigeria; enough to
gamble at the high-stakes tables in Vegas
casinos all night. Even his accomplices
appear not to have known how much he
was really pulling down -- not even his
beautiful fiancée, Precious Matthews.
"He was playing all of us," says Paula
Gipson, a member of the crew. "The
banks, us, Precious, everybody."
Conversations with Gipson and other
Onwuhara associates, interviews with
his family and with investigators, and
hundreds of pages of court documents
reveal a digital scavenger of
extraordinary creativity and guile.
Onwuhara orchestrated his swindles
using information about homeowners
that is widely available online. In
fragments, this information is innocuous.
When assembled properly, it can be used
like an electronic skeleton key to get into
almost any credit account. Onwuhara
needed only a few short years to rack up
an illicit fortune. And he's still at large.
The son of an entrepreneur
The state of Abia in Nigeria stretches
from the plains in the north to the
riverine flats in the south and resembles,
on a map, a giraffe's head. It is a swath of
farmland filled with yam fields, cashew
orchards, and the sorrowful memories of
the Igbo people. The Igbo are Christian,
but they jokingly call themselves "black
Jews" because so many leave home to
establish themselves in business. Abia is
their heartland. In the late 1960s it was
part of Biafra, a secessionist state with
the misfortune of sitting atop vast oil
deposits. When the Nigerian civil war
erupted, more than a million Biafrans
were killed or starved to death.
Onwuhara's parents survived.
His father, Doris, was an entrepreneur,
one of the first people in Nigeria to import
satellite TVs. He built the first major hotel
in Abia's capital, Umuahia. Visitors came
from miles away to dance in the hotel's
nightclub. As Umuahia expanded and
land values appreciated, so did Doris's
influence. He moved into politics, held
office, and managed a successful
campaign for a governor of Abia.
Onwuhara's mother, Katherine, was
equally accomplished. A lawyer and
literary critic, she served as chairwoman
of Abia's board of education. The four
daughters she had with Doris would go
on to be nurses and ministers. But her
fifth child, her only son, would be
different. He would be American.
Katherine was five months pregnant with
Tobechi when she left Nigeria to attend
school in Houston. "Tobe" was born there
in 1979.
Katherine returned to Nigeria when Tobe
was still a boy, leaving him with an uncle
in Houston. She thought the tight-knit
diaspora would look after him. But once
Tobe reached his teenage years he
started skipping school and getting into
trouble. The family shipped him back to
Nigeria at age 15 and enrolled him in a
boarding school run by the Marist
Brothers, a Catholic order known for
educational discipline. Onwuhara
graduated and enrolled in medical school
at Abia State University. He was by all
accounts an exceptionally clever, shy boy
who spoke infrequently but eloquently.
He longed to return to the U.S.
In 1999, Onwuhara moved back to Texas.
He rented an apartment in Dallas and
took classes at Brookhaven College. He
found a job as a loan officer at Capital One
( COF, Fortune 500). He learned how
banks worked from the inside, studying
documents and procedures. (Capital One
declines to discuss Onwuhara.) Then he
turned to crime. With the help of a friend
who had connections at Discover
Financial Services ( DFS, Fortune 500),
Onwuhara cooked up driver's licenses
and credit cards under the names of real
customers, according to court
documents. He bought electronics at
CompUSA. He hit up restaurants and
clubs. That was how he met Precious
Matthews, a pretty Baylor student
majoring in speech communication.
Matthews worked as a waitress;
Onwuhara was a regular, flirtatious
customer. When Precious warned him
the establishment was suspicious of his
transactions, Onwuhara was smitten.
The two started dating and were soon
engaged.
In 2002, Onwuhara was arrested three
times in Texas for credit card fraud. The
police raided his apartment and found
incriminating evidence. Onwuhara had
mastered some techniques of identity
theft and stolen more than $100,000
with an accomplice, according to a
statement he gave to the authorities, but
he was still a fledgling criminal making
silly mistakes. Chief among them was
going into a store or a bank in person to
commit fraud. He would learn later to
distance himself from a crime and leave
few traces of his involvement. But not
yet.
When the heat in Texas got too great,
Onwuhara left for Seattle to meet Abel
Nnabue, a Nigerian friend known as "Q."
On Dec. 12, 2002, the two men drove to a
bank in Lynwood, Wash., their wallets
packed with fake IDs and unauthorized
credit cards. Nnabue waited in their gold
Plymouth Neon rental car while
Onwuhara entered the bank to try for a $
5,000 cash advance. When the bank
called the police, Onwuhara bolted
outside and into the Neon, just as a
cruiser arrived. Nnabue sped away on
wet streets, gunning the Neon through
stop signs. Two more cop cars joined the
chase; Onwuhara threw his wallet out
the window. The police cornered the men
in the parking lot of a Korean church.
Onwuhara fled on foot, and a K-9 unit
found him hiding in a pond. In May 2003
he was sentenced to 12 months in prison.
"I'm deeply and sincerely sorry," he told a
federal judge. "You'll never again see me
in any kind of trouble with the law or hear
anything negative about me from this
day forward."
By the time Onwuhara got out of prison,
the housing market was bubbling.
"He made it thunderstorm."
The Dallas Gentlemen's Club is one of
Texas's bawdiest fleshpots, a highway-
side warehouse of grinding booty and
slack-jawed marks. The club attracts big
spenders -- athletes, rap stars -- but
Onwuhara made them look like flunkies.
When he walked in, the strippers would
beeline for him, their cellphones lighting
up as they called their off-duty friends:
"Get over here! T just showed up!" They
knew what to expect -- $650 bottles of
Cristal, $2,000 stacks of ones for his
entourage, $50,000 in a briefcase he'd
empty out. During a single song, he'd drop
so much money the girls needed two
more songs to scoop all the bills off the
floor. He'd repeat this performance
several times a week.
"He didn't just make it rain," one dancer
would later tell the authorities. "He made
it thunderstorm."
At the end of the night, Onwuhara liked to
idle outside the club in his $300,000
Rolls-Royce Phantom waiting for the girls
to exit, according to interviews with FBI
investigators. When he saw one he liked,
he'd simply point. She was coming back to
the W. If women were his weakness,
strippers were his vice. But Precious
would eventually find out. Still engaged,
she and Onwuhara had moved in
together.
The studious, soft-spoken Tobe had
disappeared. Onwuhara, now known as
"T," was the owner of S.W.A.T. Up
Entertainment, a rap label; a deluxe
apartment in Dallas and a mansion in
Miramar, Fla.; and a diamond chain the
size of a tow rope that he wore around his
neck. Dangling at the end of the chain
was a grinning mini-T clutching sacks of
money like a cartoon bank robber, which
is what Onwuhara increasingly
resembled.
In hindsight, it seems obvious that a
savvy cybercriminal would target
HELOCs. From 1998 to 2007, the
percentage of homeowners with HELOCs
jumped from 10.6% to 18.4%. Credit
balances soared. All the information a
scammer needed was available online.
The trick was cobbling it together.
Onwuhara taught himself how.
Using ListSource, a direct-marketing
company, he'd collect mortgage
information on married couples with
million-dollar homes. They qualified for
high HELOCs. He'd find lease or loan
papers through public databases and pay
sites, then use Photoshop to grab
homeowners' signatures off documents.
Next, he'd build a profile of the victim by
paying for a background search through
skip-tracing sites. That would give him
birth dates, Social Security numbers,
names of relatives, previous addresses,
employment histories, and more. To get a
mother's maiden name he would use
Ancestry.com.
Profile in hand, he would run a credit
check on victims through
annualcreditreport.com, a website set up
by the big three credit-reporting
agencies. Onwuhara had discovered a
flaw in the Experian portion of the site,
which screened users with a
personalized security question and
several multiple-choice answers. Users
had to click on the correct answer to
proceed. But when Onwuhara refreshed
his browser, he found that the site
replaced certain answers with new ones.
Clearly, these were red herrings.
Onwuhara knew the correct answer to
the security question would appear
persistently on screen as he refreshed.
Enough refreshing would eventually
reveal the true answer and allow
Onwuhara to access reports. (A
spokesman for Experian says that the
company is cooperating with law
enforcement authorities and that "since
this case we have refined our security
protocol." The reports provided
Onwuhara with details about the victim's
HELOC. He preferred credit union
HELOCs: They were soft targets.
At this point artistry came into play.
Onwuhara used a phone service called
SpoofCard to make any number he
wanted appear in a caller ID. This was key
to his scam. With SpoofCard, Onwuhara
could fool financial institutions into
thinking his call originated from the
victim's phone. Onwuhara knew the
system. He knew the questions he'd get.
Usually he had the answers, along with
account numbers, balances, and
passwords. Altering his gravelly voice like
a professional actor, he could switch
ethnicity, age, and accent on a whim. A
customer service rep was easy prey.
Once in, Onwuhara would wire HELOC
money out of the country. Financial
institutions faxed wire transfer requests
to his e-fax account, which converted
faxes to e-mails. After attaching
Photoshopped signatures and phony
headers, he would send the forms back.
The money would be wired to banks in
Asia where mules that Onwuhara had
recruited would withdraw the money,
take a cut, and redeposit the funds into
other accounts or with hawalas, informal
money brokers who ask few questions.
Finally, the money would be wired back to
the U.S. into accounts Onwuhara
controlled. At one point he received a 40-
million-euro transfer. He would further
launder the money by depositing it in
casinos and cashing out in checks days
later. He would also buy ultra-expensive
luxury cars, drive them for a few months,
then ship them to Nigeria, where they
would be resold at a steep markup.
Onwuhara was clearing about $7 million
every two weeks, according to the FBI.
The mastermind shared few details of the
scam, even with his inner circle. Precious
Matthews and Paula Gipson knew the
most, mainly because Onwuhara couldn't
impersonate women on the phone. He
needed them to pose as female account
holders and had to give them more
information. Nnabue gathered mortgage
information and loan documents. Ezenwa
("E" Onyedebelu, a promising young
student from Dallas whom Onwuhara
had tapped as his protégé, laundered
money. Henry Obilo, a hulking pre-med
student who doubled as Onwuhara's
bodyguard, specialized in Bank of
America ( BAC, Fortune 500) information.
Onwuhara doled out profits according to
a person's role. Callers received more
than researchers, and members of the
crew competed to work the phones. If
they weren't slick enough, Onwuhara
bumped them back to online scutwork. All
the money, all the information, ran
through him. He never stored sensitive
data on his computer, keeping it instead
on a flash drive he could easily destroy.
But no matter the precautions he took to
cover his tracks, something was bound to
go awry. Sometimes you just hit the
wrong man.
The net tightens
On Dec. 8, 2007, Robert "Duke" Short sat
down in front of his PC. It was around 10
a.m., a few hours before Short was to take
his wife to their regular weekend lunch
near their home in Alexandria, Va. Short
wanted to check his accounts at the U.S.
Senate Federal Credit Union. A former
U.S. Treasury agent, Short arrived in D.C.
from South Carolina as the Treasury
Department's national chief of
investigations. He got into politics and
became Strom Thurmond's chief of staff.
He spent 30 years on Capitol Hill. He was,
in other words, the wrong man to hit.
That morning, Short couldn't log into his
account. His password had been
changed, and the credit union was
closed. Short called in on Monday. When
he accessed his account, he saw that $
280,000 was missing, most of it from his
high-limit HELOC account.
"They said this money was transferred to
Korea," he recalls. "They said, 'Are you
sure you didn't do that?' I said, 'Listen, if
that amount of money was transferred to
Korea, I would know.'"
The credit union would protect Short
from any losses -- in fact, almost all of
Onwuhara's victims eventually had their
monetary losses covered by their
financial institutions, although they still
had to cope with the shock of identity
theft and ruined credit ratings.
Short called the Alexandria police
department, the Secret Service, and the
FBI. Within days an investigation was
underway.
The investigators' first clue came from
the IP addresses used to log in to Short's
account. The FBI determined that
someone had called the credit union to
reset Short's password, sounding like an
older white man. The caller claimed that
the auto login to his account had
vanished after his son had set up a new
computer for him. He was convincing. But
after the password was reset, the caller
logged in to Short's account while still on
the phone. The FBI now had a precise IP
address to track. It belonged to a Verizon
Wireless Internet card registered to a
fictitious name and a real address in
Miramar, Fla., just a few doors down from
Onwuhara's mansion, a fact the FBI
would discover later.
Onwuhara bought wireless Internet
service with prepaid debit cards, making
him virtually untraceable. But he still had
to go to a Verizon ( VZ, Fortune 500) store
to make purchases. Two deposits had
been made to the Verizon account tied to
the Short crime. Both occurred in Plano,
Texas. When investigators pulled
security video from the store, they saw
three men at a kiosk. One was wearing an
Ed Hardy hoodie covered in rhinestone
skulls. Investigators began looking for
names.
They knew their thief had intercepted a
call from the credit union to Short to
confirm the wire transfer. Onwuhara had
duped Short's phone company into
remotely forwarding calls to Onwuhara's
cell, a tactic he used often. But it
backfired when investigators obtained a
list of phones to which customers' home
numbers were being forwarded. On the
list, they found numerous prepaid phone
numbers. Calls were being made from
these numbers to banks across the
country and to 1-800 numbers belonging
to SpoofCard. These were the scammers'
virtual fingerprints.
An FBI search warrant produced 1,500
recorded calls connected to the
suspicious SpoofCard accounts.
(SpoofCard says that it doesn't routinely
record calls made over its system, but
that callers may opt to do so.) The tapes
were a jackpot for investigators. "There
were so many different voices," says FBI
special agent Hadley Etienne. "They all
knew what to say. They all had it down."
For months investigators listened to the
tapes, hoping for a break. "You know how
it is when you're reading a good book and
you're just reading and reading and
reading," says Michael Nail, the lead FBI
investigator. "It was like that. I was at
home one weekend listening to calls. And
this one call came up."
In it, Onwuhara does a pitch-perfect
impersonation of a middle-aged white
doctor calling in a prescription to a CVS
( CVS, Fortune 500) pharmacy. The
prescription was for Valtrex, a herpes
medication. The patient was Tobe
Onwuhara. At last, investigators had a
name. They pulled a Texas DMV photo of
Onwuhara. It matched the image of the
man in the hoodie from the Verizon video.
Their quarry was in reach, but they
needed more evidence.
In April 2008, agents detained Onwuhara,
Nnabue, Matthews, and Obilo at J.F.K.
International Airport in New York. The
group was flying home after a vacation in
Nigeria. They had stayed at the Ritz in
London during their stopover. Onwuhara
had even brought his diamond chain.
Investigators told the scammers they
were being stopped as part of a routine
travel check. Their real purpose was to
confirm the voices and nicknames they'd
heard on the tapes and the phone
numbers used in the calls. Now they
would begin to monitor Onwuhara's
phone and station cars in the street
outside his Miramar mansion to conduct
surveillance.
The crew starts to unravel
If the airport stop rattled Onwuhara, he
didn't show it. He still ate fish and rice at
Pappadeaux's in Dallas. He still threw
parties at the chic Ghost Bar on the roof
of the W. But nerves were fraying within
his crew, according to Paula Gipson.
Nnabue complained about his pay. Gipson
agonized over her crimes yet justified
them by saying she was only hurting the
banks. Matthews spiraled into a
depression. She enjoyed the finer things
Onwuhara provided her -- shopping
sprees at high-end stores, weekends in
the best hotels, a house with a new pool
-- but their relationship had grown
combustible. She and Onwuhara fought.
After one argument he stormed through
the Miramar house and smashed the
screens of the plasma TVs.
It was around this time that Onwuhara
grew suspicious that law enforcement
might be on to him. FBI agents had placed
both a pen register and a trap-and-trace
device on his phone, which let them
record all outgoing and incoming
numbers. Onwuhara somehow found
out. When he called Cingular/AT&T ( T,
Fortune 500), his cellphone carrier, the
company "accidentally" revealed the
name and number of the FBI technician
tracking him, according to an FBI affidavit
in support of a criminal complaint. But
people who know Onwuhara don't think it
was an accident.
"He has a way of getting people to tell him
everything," Gipson says.
On July 30, 2008, he destroyed his cell
and switched to another phone the FBI
wasn't monitoring.
The FBI didn't know where he'd gone. Was
he making an escape? Emergency arrest
warrants were obtained. Two days later,
on a perfect South Florida night, the
agents watching Onwuhara's house
noticed a commotion. Matthews ran
outside, followed by a familiar-looking
man. Matthews sped away in her Acura.
The man followed in a black BMW X6
registered to Onwuhara. The agents gave
chase as the cars rocketed down the
highway at more than 100 mph.
"I got some calls," Nail says. "They were
like, 'Hey, they're speeding. Should we
stop them now?'"
Nail consulted Etienne and the assistant
U.S. attorney on the case. They decided
to make the arrest. The agents on the
ground followed the speeding cars to the
Hard Rock Casino in Fort Lauderdale. The
Acura and the BMW screeched to a halt at
the curb in front of the casino. The
drivers rushed inside, where local police
detained them. The man from the BMW
wasn't Onwuhara but rather his protégé,
Ezenwa Onyedebelu. In the seconds
before the FBI arrived with handcuffs to
make the arrest, Matthews whipped out
her cellphone and fired off a text: "Leave
now. They got us."
Somewhere inside the Hard Rock, maybe
at one of his beloved craps tables, one of
the greatest cyberscammers in history
looked up from his phone, calmly headed
for a back door, and hailed a cab. Then he
melted into the night. He hasn't been
seen since.
Floating between worlds
"I was taught by my dad not to be a
follower," Onwuhara once said.
He is following his own treacherous path
now, one that few have charted. A most-
wanted fugitive, he has a $25,000
bounty on his head.
Almost all of Onwuhara's co-conspirators
were indicted and pleaded guilty.
Precious Matthews was sentenced to 51
months in prison. Daniel "Orji" Orjinta got
42 months. Abel Nnabue had his
sentence reduced to 27 months after
cooperating with prosecutors. Paula
Gipson and Ezenwa Onyedebelu helped
prosecutors and had their sentences
reduced to 15 months and 14 months,
respectively. Only Henry Obilo pleaded
not guilty. He was sentenced to 88
months in prison.
As for Onwuhara, the FBI claims to have
no clue where he is. One accomplice
swears he's still in America. Maybe he's
floating between worlds in cyberspace,
probing for new cracks in new systems.
"The boy is an enigma," says one of his
sisters. "What can I tell you?"

@pro01 thank u! U have stated the facts in all of ur post.

Some moves dont just spring out, it's by habit. You ought to expect him to be good with it. Background check!!  



@ Ileke-IdI (f)  
I agree totally with you. An Ibo proverb says that, "he that his father steals breaks door with legs". No smoke without fire.We should stop celebrating such shameful fraudsters and save our image.  

You think this guy is the greatest scammer to come out of naija? Pls, google up ikechukwu anajemba n get educated. This was way back in d 90s. Naija! We don tey 4 bad bad things

obiflex:

You think this guy is the greatest scammer to come out of naija? Pls, google up ikechukwu anajemba n get educated. This was way back in d 90s. Naija! We don tey 4 bad bad things

naija clap for your self

yup he is[img]http://2.s07.flagcounter.com/count/DymW/bg=ffffff/txt=ffffff/border=ffffff/columns=1/maxflags=1/viewers=3/labels=0/[/img]
[img]http://s07.flagcounter.com/count/DymW/bg=ffffff/txt=ffffff/border=ffffff/columns=1/maxflags=1/viewers=3/labels=0/[/img]

If it was America that had so much 419 they would have rebranded it and people will even be paying to get scammed or paying to experience being conned. I'm saying this jokingly but not bad still we can have "419 Tourism" like where people that think they're smart comes to a "419 Tourist Centre" and try not to get scammed . Or a "419 Museum" where all tools of great scamers are displayed , all the fake currency / black notes, Classic scam letters, biggest wire telex / confirmation in the history of Nigerian scam, etc just my two cents jokingly

Kanu akanu said
This man probably inspired a lot of yahoo-yahoo boys. No one can compete with him in his sheer genius. The way he laundered his money. And how he was able to work under the radar, was truly something to behold.
That article reminds me of a movie script

Has our society moved to the level that people who take away life-long savings of others and render families hungry are now respected as sources of inspiration and cheered on as Genius. What's wrong with this our generation?? Materialism (that are gotten from whichever sources) have been enthroned even if it means stealing from the world, organizing to get your relatives kidnapped, killing your friend to own his car etc
What forces have invaded the hearts of this generation of ours!

Ivynwa:

Has our society moved to the level that people who take away life-long savings of others and render families hungry are now respected as sources of inspiration and cheered on as Genius. What's wrong with this our generation?? Materialism (that are gotten from whichever sources) have been enthroned even if it means stealing from the world, organizing to get your relatives kidnapped, killing your friend to own his car etc
What forces have invaded the hearts of this generation of ours!

Ey you there long time no yabis

The more you talk about it the more some people get to know about this types of fraud and wanna practice it lol. Somethings are either left unpubliciized.

fstranger1:

Ey you there long time no yabis

Hi Friend, Happy new year to you! How are you doing Baby? Hope fine? How about our friend sh**tiy baby? You know who I mean Ish*t4body? Haven't I missed her and her controversies? You sound real cool headed right now, what happened to you? I always catch you stirring up some sweet mischief. Hope you are alright.

Have you guys seen catch me if you can movie?If he was oyinbo hollywood will by now working out how to make life long billions with his escapades,even cat burglars are legends in oyinbo world

We live in a corrupt world,the worst corruption is the one against one's own people and against the very down trodden

Well the movie about him is already under production:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1609197/