67-year-old American posing as ‘Nigerian Prince’ arrested for fraud

A 67-year-old American advance fee fraudster
Michael Neu posing as a Nigerian prince has been
arrested by the police in Louisiana.
He was said to have duped hundreds of people
across America using emails.
Police said he faces 269 counts of wire fraud and
money laundering following an 18-month
investigation.
Police in Slidell, Louisiana, say they finally caught
up with one of the people behind some of those
emails. He’s not exactly Nigerian royalty, either,
police wrote in a Facebook post.
According to The Sacramento Bee anyone with an
email address has likely gotten a message from
the so-called Nigerian prince or two offering
hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars
in secret inheritances or, in some cases, payment
for assistance laundering ill-gotten gains from
mining conglomerates or royal treasuries.
In these scams, the supposed Nigerian prince (or
other official) asks for the person’s personal
banking information in order to speed the transfer
of the purported inheritance or temporarily hold
the allegedly pilfered funds. The information can
then be used to withdraw funds from the victim’s
accounts.
While Neu might lack a royal title, at least some
of the money obtained in his scams did go to co-
conspirators in Nigeria, police wrote. Investigators
are continuing to untangle Neu’s web of scams,
but many other leads also connect to people
outside the U.S., the post says.
Police noted that while these kinds of emails are
laughable to many people, authorities report
millions of dollars in losses to such scams each
year.
“If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is,”
said Police Chief Randy Fandal in the Facebook
post. “Never give out personal information over
the phone, through e-mail, cash checks for other
individuals, or wire large amounts of money to
someone you don’t know. 99.9 percent of the
time, it’s a scam.”
Law enforcement agencies across the nation also
are warning people of calls from scammers
purporting to be police or court officials
demanding payment via phone of bogus fines or
warrants. Another version involves scammers
claiming to be jailed relatives pleading for bail
money, often targeting older people.