Saheed Azeez, a Nigerian man who claimed to be gay and was given refuge in the UK, has been detained for orchestrating a £220,000 scam. In less than a year, Azeez is said to have created a network of people who used their homes to accept goods from online sellers who sent products before they were paid.
According to reports, he gathered the goods he bought from websites like Facebook Marketplace and eBay and sold them at his brother’s electronics company in Wigan, a city in northwest England.
Azeez received a percentage of the sales and split some earnings with his Bitcoin partners. He later fathered three children with three different women.
The UK Telegraph reports that twenty-seven individuals were duped into sending used equipment, such as cameras and smartphones, without getting paid.
The news outlet further stated that Azeez was granted permission to relocate to the UK after asserting that Boko Haram terrorists in Nigeria were harassing him because of his gay orientation.
After receiving refuge, the 33-year-old Nigerian immigrated to Wigan, Greater Manchester, and fathered three children by three separate women.
Following strange package activity in North Manchester connected to Azeez, police launched an inquiry. As he tried to conceal the three smartphones used in the scam in the child’s school bag, he was caught while dropping off his son at school.
As part of the scheme, he was allegedly connected to the opening of 37 anonymous bank accounts with six different identities that took cryptocurrencies.
According to prosecutor Andy Evans, the phones showed Azeez’s involvement in the internet scams, which entailed contacting UK electronics dealers and convincing them to ship goods before payment.
Azeez entered a guilty plea to the charges of preparing to possess illegal property and conspiring to commit fraud by false representation. He has come out as bisexual and could get a six-year prison sentence.
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