A Nigerian man identified as 44-year-old Kazeem Owonla has been charged to court over his successful scam operation.
Owonla’s modus operandi was to set up an online dating profile using a photo from Montana’s Attorney general’s campaign website and falsify stories about overseas business problems to scam several women.
The ruse worked as a Kosciusko County woman reported sending more than $100,000 to a man who represented himself as John Tony Hagan, an electrical engineer from South Bend who was working in Egypt.
The woman narrated her ordeal stating that she met Owonla’s alter ego in January 2014 and that by February he was asking for money.
The woman said Hagen told her he needed money to replace his stolen tools. She said she sent him $5,600. The woman also responded to requests for $12,000 to pay his workers and for $25,000 to replace money that was supposedly stolen when his interpreter was stabbed after they made a bank withdrawal. In June, the woman provided investigators with receipts showing she wired or made bank transfers totaling more than $100,000 to the man she believed was Hagan, court records said.
He had convinced the woman that he loved her and wanted to be with her.
A deputy found the bank transfers from the woman were ending up in an account owned by Owonla, who was in the U.S. on a visitor’s visa last year.
Further investigation showed that Owonla had scammed not just this woman but several others with one Ohio woman sending $1,550 through bank transfer. The woman had told a similar story of a man she met online who had identified himself as Henry Tesone, an electrical engineer in South Africa who was headed to Egypt to work. He also used stolen tools and other similar reasons to get the Ohio woman to send him a total of $11,590.
The Attorney General who’s picture was being used was said to be very upset that a photo connected to him was used in such a scheme.