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Nigerian Scammer comes to America – Bad Decision

March 3, 2009 – 5:55 pm

I am sure you’ve heard of the Nigerian e-mail scam, which has been popular in Nigeria for sometime. It seems that e-mail scams are not the only thing that Nigeria is good at. They seem to be pretty proficient in identity theft as well.

The thing about international identity theft is that it’s hard to find the perpetrator because you are here and he is way over there. So if I were an identity thief I would stay away from the country I stole the identities from.

Well for one Nigerian immigrant this must of never crossed his mind. Ayomide Michael Akinuli, 23, of Prince George’s County, Md., was a passenger in a SUV when it was pulled over. The police officer detected a small amount of marijuana, and after a search of the vehicle found a ledger with the names and detailed personal information of 35 people. The information included, Social Security numbers, addresses, dates of birth and account numbers. According to Akinuli the ledger was bought from an African associate for $200.

The officer also found five credit cards and two check books that, you guessed it, didn’t belong to either of them. $5,000 in cash was also found in the car along with receipts that proved the credit cards had been used to purchase $5,700 in merchandise.

Akinuli was sentenced to 18 months in prison and been ordered to pay $86,000 in restitution in relation to the fraudulent charges. So I guess if your going to steal people’s identities from another country, don’t go to the same county, smoke marijuana, Speed around in your car, and leave your identity theft document laying around in your car.

Perhaps he learned his lesson but I wouldn’t hold my breath.

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