Jesse in Nigeria court after death of Australian Jette in ‘online dating scam’

A NIGERIAN man who allegedly conned an Australian pensioner out of $90,000 in an online dating scam has appeared in court charged with deception, the country’s anti-graft agency said on Thursday.
“The man was brought to court in Ibadan for conspiracy and obtaining the sum of $90,000 from an Australian woman under false pretence,” Wilson Uwujaren, of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), told AFP.
He said Orowo Jesse Omokoh had met 67-year-old Jette Jacobs, a grandmother from Western Australia who lived in Johannesburg, South Africa, on the internet in 2012 with a promise to marry her.

REVEALED: How the alleged scam unfolded
 
But the accused and others still at large then fraudulently obtained the money from the woman to prepare for the wedding in Nigeria which never took place.
“Jesse left Nigeria to meet the woman on February 4, 2013 and five days later, Jacobs was found dead in her apartment in Johannesburg,” he added.

Jesse returned to Nigeria two days after the discovery of Jacobs’ body but Uwujaren could not say if the accused was responsible for her death.
The defendant, who was arrested in Nigeria in January this year, pleaded not guilty to the charges and his lawyer asked the court to grant him bail.
But the court instead remanded him in custody until a further hearing of the bail application on July 10.
Ms Jacob’s family believe she may have been murdered after leaving her home in Wagin, southeast of Perth, last November on a trip she believed would seal her online romance of four years.
Some of her valuables were missing and Omokoh had returned to Nigeria.

“The South African police, which is investigating the mysterious death, are suspicious that Omokoh has a hand in the demise of Jacobs,’’ the EFCC said.
The organisation, which investigates money-laundering and online scams, said Australian Federal Police informed officers in March that Omokoh had allegedly defrauded Jacobs of $90,000.
Jacobs, a grandmother from Western Australia, reportedly sent tens of thousands of dollars to Nigeria during her four-year “romance’’ with a man known as “Jesse’’.
Tragically, WA police — through their online fraud crackdown called Operation Sunbird — had sent a letter to Ms Jacobs warning her she was the victim of a fraud, but it arrived after she had left for South Africa. Her six children and 14 grandchildren are in mourning.