It is common to hear about scams taking place and many of us have to dodge scams on a daily basis. When it reaches the level that it reached in this story, however, it really is incredible.
A man by the name of Emmanuel Nwude managed to swindle a bank out of $240 million. As a result, the entire bank collapsed and he was arrested.
Emmanuel used to work at the Union Bank of Nigeria as a director. He knew how the financial industry worked, but he also was scheming to do something with that knowledge.
He contacted a director for the Brazilian Bank Banco Noroeste, Nelson Sakaguchi. He had a proposition for him, but he was pretending to be someone else. He pretended to be the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Paul Ogwuma.
He went on to say that a new airport was being built and they needed money to fund it. Sakaguchi fell for it but likely was looking at it as a business venture. He probably was also excited that he would make a $10 million commission if the airport received the funding.
The amazing thing is that no background checks were completed and a deal was agreed to. Emmanuel paid $242 million between 1995 and 1998 to build the airport, one that never even existed.
In 1997, Banco Noroeste was about to be bought out by another bank, Santander. They took a closer look at the numbers and something wasn’t right. Half of the money was sitting in the Cayman Islands but they were also funding a man to build an airport that didn’t exist.
The bank had turned a bad corner and as of 2001, they no longer existed. After they realized the scam was in play, criminal investigations were launched on how Emmanuel had scammed the amount of $242 million.
The sale of the bank didn’t go through and they were never able to recover. Three years later they were bankrupt and Emmanuel was in court with his accomplices. Amazingly, that 2004 case was thrown out but all of them were arrested again so they could face charges in another court.
Eventually, they pled guilty to 100 counts of fraud and bribery. He even tried to bribe his way out of it with a $75,000 offer, but it was rejected and he just got into more trouble.
Emmanuel was sentenced to 25 years in prison but he was given an early release in 2006.
