Nigerian mega fraudsters jailed in the U.K

Three sophisticated fraudsters who used the names of more than 200 dead children to launder profits from an attempted £1m VAT fraud have been jailed for more than 16 years. 

Saheed Oyeneye, 35, Rasaq Omotunde, 38, and Oluwakemi Adesaogun, 38, all from south east London, set up hundreds of bogus online HMRC accounts to ‘get rich quick’ off the public purse.

The Nigerian-born adopted false identities of hundreds of unsuspecting victims, mirroring the tactic employed by the assassin in The Day of the Jackal, as part of his plot to shoot French president Charles de Gaulle.

In total, the gang managed to pocket around £250,000, which was banked across hundreds of accounts which had been set up under false names.

But the trio were rumbled early on by HMRC and did not pay out more than three-quarters of the money.

When their homes were searched, investigators discovered the personal details of more than 200 dead children were stored on computers, the court heard.