Perry Osagiede founded the Cape Town Zone of Black Axe and worked as its zonal head, along with Izevbigie. The Black Axe is organized into regional chapters known as “zones,” and the defendants were all leaders within the Cape Town, South Africa, Zone. Perry Osagiede, Izevbigie, Franklyn Osagiede, Clement, Otughwor, and Mudashiru (the “Black Axe defendants”) were all leaders of the Neo Black Movement of Africa, also known as “Black Axe,” an organization headquartered in Benin City, Nigeria that operates in various countries. In other words, anyone who thinks they can avoid American justice simply by operating outside the United States should rethink their strategy.”Īccording to documents filed in these cases: The strong working relationship among our federal and international law enforcement partners allows us to reach across geographical boundaries. “The FBI has a global footprint and will use every resource available to protect the American people. “Foreign nationals who think they can hide in another country or in cyberspace while preying on our citizens need to know one thing,” Special Agent in Charge George M. Toritseju Gabriel Otubu, aka “Andy Richards,” aka “Ann Petersen,” 41, also originally from Nigeria, is charged by separate indictment with wire fraud conspiracy, wire fraud, aggravated identity theft, and money laundering conspiracy, spanning from 2016 to 2021. charges 11 Nigerians with online fraud, money laundering FBI, South Africa arrest Nigerian scammers in Cape Town, founder of Black Axe nabbed too.New Jersey, Texas want 8 Nigerians arrested in Cape Town for $6.8m scams.Women should be very careful and not part with any money, especially not to someone they have not met in person. My advice for women would be to do their due diligence, the syndicate would usually declare their love for you within days, claiming to be prominent figures or employed in the engineering industry, within weeks after grooming their prey they would start their exploitations, better known as ''phase 2''. People should steer away from posting their whole life on social media. “I must admit there are people finding true love on dating sites, however, they are few and far between. “Elderly women, especially widowed or divorced are the prime suspects on dating sites, they are the vulnerable targets, there are victimology assessments done on their targets, intel-gathering and usually very complex screening to identify the perfect victim,” said Alexander. South Africa is their favourite playground where they marry locals to obtain citizenship so they can travel to European countries easily. The group is also found in Italy and works with Italian mafia groups. They are said to have been operating from the Table View area along the west coast, posing as wealthy pensioners looking for love. Hawks spokesperson Colonel Katlego Mogale said the FBI estimates that more than 100 people lost more than R100 million in romance scams from 2011 to date. This was how their story evolved and how they managed to adapt to the pandemic,” he said.Įight Nigerian nationals which include six leaders of the group aged between 33 to 52 were arrested for Internet scams, money laundering and international-wide scale financial fraud in Cape Town in a joint operation by the FBI, United States Secret Service(USSS), Interpol and with assistance from the Hawks Serious Commercial Crime Investigation Unit, Crime Intelligence(CI), K9, National Intervention Unit, Special Task Force (STF), Tactical Operations Management Section (Toms), Criminal Record Centre and Cape Town Metro police. However, we heard bizarre stories such as one who was claiming to be trapped on an oil rig and unable to set foot on land, claiming that their food supply had diminished and they are now paying as much as $300 for a loaf of bread. “We noticed during the pandemic the romance scammers had to deviate from their usual ’script’ or storyline, they could no longer make victims believe that they are travelling for business, due to lockdown.