{"id":469591,"date":"2011-07-28T09:14:45","date_gmt":"2011-07-28T09:14:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ghanamma.net\/2011\/07\/28\/nigerian-man-dupes-british-lady\/"},"modified":"2011-07-28T09:14:45","modified_gmt":"2011-07-28T09:14:45","slug":"nigerian-man-dupes-british-lady","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/07\/28\/nigerian-man-dupes-british-lady\/","title":{"rendered":"NIGERIAN MAN DUPES BRITISH LADY"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nA FORMER air stewardess has told how she lost her \u00a350,000 life savings to a Nigerian scam that targets UK dating websites.<\/p>\n

Divorcee Brenda Parke, 62, believed she was in a phone and email relationship with a blond 46-year-old Dutch widower called Bradford who claimed he was living in Birmingham with his 14-year-old daughter.<\/p>\n

But he was really a conman in the Nigerian city of Lagos.<\/p>\n

After a month, he claimed he and his daughter had been in a car crash while on a business trip to Africa.<\/p>\n

Brenda wired \u00a39,000 for “hospital bills” then \u00a340,000 for “flights” back to the UK, but she went to Birmingham airport and no one arrived.<\/p>\n

She says: “My conscience would not let me leave a young girl in that situation so I sent the money.”<\/strong><\/p>\n

Brenda reveals her cautionary tale on Channel 4 documentary 419: The Internet Romance Scam – named after the number for fraud in Nigeria’s penal code.<\/p>\n

Producers later flew to Lagos to interview reformed fraudster Felix Ekpa, who explains: “You put a picture on the website, an age, a profile, but nothing is real.<\/strong><\/p>\n

“When a woman emails, you get them to chat then throw in that you are having problems – been in hospital, a car crash (Felix laughs), an armed robbery, cancer… “<\/p>\n

Desperate to believe “Bradford”, Brenda, from West Sussex, had driven to the Birmingham address he had given. But a postman told her that no one of that name lived there.<\/p>\n

She says: “I was now in a dreadful state – not eating, not sleeping, alone and scared. I felt overwhelmed by my own stupidity.”<\/p>\n

A second woman, known only as Caroline, tells the show, how she was duped by a man calling himself Sabastine who posed as a Greek-born Brit working in Nigeria.<\/p>\n

Furniture painter Caroline, 55, of Tunbridge Wells, Kent, says he later confessed his TRUE identity as a Nigerian called Steven – and insisted he was in LOVE with her.<\/p>\n

Caroline, feeling vulnerable after the death of her mum, flew to South Africa to share a holiday with him.<\/p>\n

She tells the show: “At the airport he had tears in his eyes and I did too. It was really exciting, like Christmas when you were a kid.”<\/strong><\/p>\n

They rented a flat in South Africa for three months and she later flew home – before investing \u00a330,000 in supposed oil deals in Africa which police believe never existed.<\/p>\n

Amazingly a relationship by phone still continues – as Caroline struggles to meet her bills. She admits: “Sad, isn’t it, so late in life? It’s insanity.”<\/strong>
<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Do you have a story\/gist for publication? Please email it to story@nigeriafilms.com<\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Read this article:
\nNIGERIAN MAN DUPES BRITISH LADY<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A FORMER air stewardess has told how she lost her \u00a350,000 life savings to a Nigerian scam that targets UK dating websites. Divorcee Brenda Parke, 62, believed she was in a phone and email relationship with a blond 46-year-old Dutch widower called Bradford who claimed he was living in Birmingham with his 14-year-old daughter. But he was really a conman in the Nigerian city of Lagos<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-469591","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard"],"yoast_head":"\nNIGERIAN MAN DUPES BRITISH LADY - Ghanamma.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/07\/28\/nigerian-man-dupes-british-lady\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"NIGERIAN MAN DUPES BRITISH LADY - Ghanamma.com\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"A FORMER air stewardess has told how she lost her \u00a350,000 life savings to a Nigerian scam that targets UK dating websites. 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