Wednesday 20 February 2013

Once-Deported Criminal Returned To Launder Profits From £2.7M Scam


A foreign criminal - deported from the UK eight years ago - was allowed back in on a spousal visa and in front of his sobbing new wife received two years for laundering £188,700 for heartless Nigerian fraudsters.

Management graduate Osas Odia, 33, (pictured) was booted out of the country in 2005 for overstaying and having a forged stamp in his passport, which allowed him to work illegally, but returned when he married his psychiatric nurse wife.

Croydon Crown Court heard criminal funds from an international £2.7m scam were washed through three bank accounts held by Odia and he continued laundering the loot while on police bail after his arrest.

One victim, Betty McClellan, 62, was shot dead by her husband Hersey McClellan, 63, who then killed himself at their Hyde Park, Los Angeles home on June 20, 2010 after she wired £264,000 to the fraudsters to release a non-existent lottery win.

Odia laundered £77,000 of the couple's life savings, plus money swindled out of a Bristol woman, who lost her home and was left destitute, and an Australian woman, who thought she was sending money to a U.S. Army general in Afghanistan.

Police identified a total of thirteen victims all over the world, who each lost an average of £207,000, after they were convinced they were due an Australian lottery pay-out, inheritance, investment benefit or were sold non-existent heavy plant machinery.

Odia, of Windrush Court, Chichester Wharf, Erith pleaded guilty to conspiring to launder criminal property and was sentenced after his co-defendants so he could complete his degree.

His lawyer Paul Brill told the court: "He is alarmed and upset by the nature of the fraud and did not realise people's life savings were being taken so callously in the way they were.

"His previous conviction was for a false stamp in his passport that allowed him to work. He is not work shy and has a strong work ethic."

Judge Jeremy Gold QC told Odia: "You are a man of some ability and you have just completed a degree and I hope that means you will not be tempted to return to this sort of offending.

"You played a full part in laundering the proceeds of a sophisticated fraud."

As Odia was taken into the cells his sobbing wife Natalie, sitting in the front row of the public gallery, wailed: "Can't I just see him?"

The plot's ringleaders Obinnam Nwokolo, 37, of Chesworth Close, Erith, who amassed a valuable property portfolio in the UK and Nigeria, received six years and four months and Uchechhukwu Onuoha, 40, of Aspen Green, Erith, who entered this country on a student visa, received five years and two months.

Both pleaded guilty at Croydon Crown Court to conspiracy to defraud between October 1, 2008 and September 15, last year.

Another money launderer, Sergius Ene, 44, of Rushden Gardens, Ilford, who received sixteen months in March for a £27,000 'Euromilions' lottery scam on an 83 year-old Northampton pensioner, was jailed for two years and eight months. for laundering £342,400.

Victims were telephoned, emailed or written to by Nwokolo and Onuoha, who between them spent at least £22,500 on stationary supplies as they convinced the dupes to pay for admin fees, insurance, certificates and other charges to release funds due to them.

"These monies were placed in a series of bank accounts and laundered," said prosecutor Mr. Andrew Evans. "The fraud was carried out on an international scale."

An Indiana farmer, believing he had a claim on a £14.9m inheritance, lost over £339,000 and a Venezuelan businessman lost £163,000 buying a mobile crane Nwokolo and father-of-two Onuoha advertised for sale on a Spanish website.

The Bristol victim lost £312,000 chasing a £1.8m Australian lottery win and found herself arrested after paying the counterfeit £158,000 cheque the defendants sent her into her account.

"She was buying a new home and intended to settle the balance from the winnings she was expecting.

"She is now living in sheltered accommodation and feels vulnerable and extremely embarrassed and her family have lost their inheritance."

Father-of-three Nwokolo even bought three 1,350 per-hour letter-folding machines to increase the volume of mail shots and his home contained lists with details of thousands of individuals and businesses.

Onuoha had a pile of 593 scam letters ready for postage when police raided the home he rented off Nwokolo and officers also found a prepared 'script' he used when duping victims over the phone.

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