A Nigerian socialite, identified as Nzube Henry Ikeji, allegedly posed as the Crown Prince of Dubai to defraud a Romanian businesswoman of $2.5 million in a romance and humanitarian investment fraud scheme.
The allegation is contained in an investigation by the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP).
In a documentary published by OCCRP, the fraud started about three years ago when the Romanian businesswoman, identified as Laura, was contacted on LinkedIn by a user claiming to be the Dubai Crown Prince.
The OCCRP investigation said the impersonator told the woman about his desire to invest in a humanitarian project in Romania through her.
The report said that the two started conversing on social media, which led to a sort of romantic relationship.
Laura’s LinkedIn page
After some time, the impostor asked Laura to meet his financial manager in London to facilitate the creation of an account with a British bank.
During one of their meetings, Laura asked one of her business partners to take a photograph of the man presented as the financial manager.
She was later given login details to a bank account, where she saw a deposit of more than £200,000, but subsequently discovered that the account was cloned and the funds were not real.
When Laura attempted to withdraw part of the money, she received an email demanding a large fee before the fund could be withdrawn.
Martins Abhulimhen, the purported financial manager in the fraud case.
The Romanian businesswoman transferred more than $2.5 million to the account before she began panicking about how to recover her money.
The investigation revealed that Ikeji’s alleged accomplices later fell out over how to share the proceeds of the scheme. As a result of the dispute, two of the alleged partners reached out to Laura and disclosed the details of the fraud.
When Laura confronted the impostor posing as the Dubai Crown Prince with the claims made by his partners, he reportedly told her that they wanted to create enmity between them.
The Romanian businesswoman later realised that she had been scammed and began demanding a refund, but her efforts yielded no results.
One of the aggrieved partners told Laura the real identity of the fake Dubai Crown Prince, giving his name as “Nzube Henry Ikeji”, and also sent her a video showing him at what he described as his newly acquired mansion.
THE TRACKING
The fake Dubai Crown Prince at his residence in Abuja after an OCCRP journalist approached him
The OCCRP team travelled to Abuja, Nigeria’s capital, to meet Chikezie Omeje, a journalist, to track the fake Dubai Crown Prince.
Through Ikeji’s Instagram account and that of his wife, the investigators were able to get some hints on how to track him.
They discovered that Ikeji had been flaunting his wealth on Instagram.
The fake Dubai Crown Prince spraying money at Davido’s concert in Asaba
Videos on his Instagram page show that he once travelled to London with his wife and son and bought items from the Louis Vuitton shop, including luxury wristwatches and a car.
One of the videos on his Instagram page shows him throwing bundles of naira during a performance by Davido, a Nigerian music star, in Asaba, Delta state capital.
Initially, the investigators said they were unable to locate the residence of the person posing as the Dubai Crown Prince.
The Abuja mansion of the fake Dubai Crown Prince
However, an Instagram post made by his wife about their new mansion in Abuja provided the first lead.
After some time, the fake Dubai Crown Prince posted a picture of himself alongside one of the biggest real estate developers in Nigeria.
For several days, Omeje said he went round Abuja to check the developer’s estate and compared them with the images and videos of the mansion posted by the impersonator.
Omeje later located the mansion of the person posing as the Dubai Crown Prince in Abuja.
The fake Dubai Crown Prince with Kayode Egbetokun, inspector-general of police (IGP)
Omeje approached the man posing as the Dubai Crown Prince at the Abuja mansion and asked him if he knew Laura from Romania. He denied knowing her.
When asked if he had told Laura that he was the Dubai Crown Prince, he responded by questioning the journalist’s source.
After a series of questions, he asked the journalist how he had gained access to his residence.
When questioned about “Dr Martins Abhulimhen” and whether Dr Martins sent him money from the UK, he said such enquiries should be directed to his lawyer.
One of Henry’s luxurious cars
The investigation revealed that Laura approached the United Kingdom (UK) police with the photograph her partner had taken during a meeting with the financial manager in London.
The financial manager was later identified as Martins Abhulimhen.
The UK police reportedly informed her that Abhulimhen was under investigation over suspicious funds, which were coincidentally Laura’s money.
Funds were said to have been transferred from Abhulimhen’s account in the UK to Ikeji’s account in Nigeria