Ghanaian authorities have successfully tried and convicted a seasoned
con artist to five years in prison for defrauding his unsuspecting
victims of at least £800,000, mostly elderly widows according to the
UK’s Mirror.
Maurice Asola Fadola is reported to have successfully developed
online relationships with mostly elderly European women, who fell for
his charm before asking them to send him monies to support his business
ventures or to bail him out of trouble.
He is said to have employed different personalities in describing
himself to victims, a popular one being that he was a high ranking
Ghanaian military officer who would eventually need significant sums of
money to advance his businesses, or to release suitcases filled with
cash from his military deployments overseas from Ghanaian customs
holding facilities.
Some of his amorous exploits would even involve the victims
travelling to Ghana to meet their online lover, where they would be
enchanted in visiting his gigantic and gold plated marble mansion,
before doling out their own monies in a scheme.
A 71 year old British woman is one such victim, who travelled to
Ghana after the con artist successfully portrayed himself as a British
homebuilder, who was returning to Ghana and needed cash to invest in a
Ghanaian mining enterprise.
"He made feel great, he made me feel wanted and that he was genuine. It was a nice feeling."- Katherine Clark told Sky News.
Another victim, Dena White, from East Yorkshire, UK, told reporters
that she gave the con artist, whom she knew as Steve Moon, £50,000 in
2009 after taking a loan against her home, and which she eventually lost
as a result.
Maurice Fadola is known to have conned at least 20 victims over
several years with his smooth talking, but was finally nabbed when his
real identity was determined in a travel application to the UK.
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