The love on the Internet was only faked: A woman from Holzkirchen (73) lost a lot of money because she was caught by a perfidious scam of the “Nigeria Connection”.
Now the court sentenced an accomplice.
Holzkirchen / Wolfratshausen
- The trick is always the same: “Fooling about love, gaining trust, gutting” is how a criminal investigation officer describes the way the so-called “Nigeria Connection” works. Behind this is a fraud system, with which brazen criminals in a variety of ways - the flirt acquaintances from the Internet are just one of many tools - to pin their victims.
During their investigations, the Kripo came across a pensioner (73) from Holzkirchen, who had repeatedly transferred large amounts of money to various accounts over a long period of time.
The supposed "financial agent" quickly turned out to be a victim.
Instead of the woman, an asylum seeker (35) from a municipality in the northern district of Bad Tölz-Wolfratshausen recently had to answer before the Wolfratshauser district court.
He was fined 7,000 euros in eleven cases for money laundering.
Defendant assures that he did not know anything about the origin of the money
The senior citizen had also transferred large amounts to the defendant's bank accounts.
The 35-year-old transferred the money to Nigeria - a total of 13,800 euros between the end of October 2019 and the end of January 2020. However, his defender said he had no idea what the amounts were.
Your client acted in faith to do a compatriot a favor.
He told him the money was for his sister's school fees.
“It was a favor that you do yourself in your culture.
When asked for a favor, it's hard to turn down, ”said the lawyer.
The defendant had not given any thought to where the money came from.
During the trial, the Nigerian got to know a victim of this criminal activity.
She would "like to disappear underground," said the elderly woman as a witness.
The whole thing was “so embarrassing” that she wanted to kill herself in the meantime.
“I thought it couldn't be.” Despite her old age, she fell in love again in 2019 with a Christopher from London.
She met him on the internet.
At some point, the news reached them that the man had been in a car accident while on a trip to Australia.
He asked her to lend him some money.
She sent him the first 2000 euros.
That she should transfer it to someone else's account was not surprising.
The judge does not accept the defendant's justification
The next transfer was not long in coming. "A leg was supposed to be taken off him, he was always between life and death," reported the woman. She didn't realize or didn't want to realize that she had run into an unscrupulous impostor. "How is it that you can be so stupid?" She asked into the room. “You can't imagine how much it hurts when you are cheated on like that - at that age.” The pensioner estimated her financial loss at around 150,000 euros - emotionally it is almost unbearable.
The witness said she “did not leave it indifferent,” said the defense attorney. “I was shocked.” But she also made it clear: “My client is at the very end of this long, long chain, he doesn't notice anything from the others.” In his last word, the defendant asserted that he had only participated in the money transfers , "Because the people in Nigeria are suffering too".
Judge Helmut Berger took up this right at the beginning of his judgment. “Not a cent of it benefits the people in Nigeria,” he emphasized. “The people in the background fill their pockets with it, wherever they may be.” Berger sentenced the 35-year-old to 200 daily rates of 35 euros each. Unlike the public prosecutor, who had applied for a year of imprisonment with probation, the court only assessed the matter as frivolous money laundering, from which the "errand boy" himself had made no profit.