23 arrested in Spain as 'Nigerian Letter' scam is broken up

Twenty-three people have been arrested by the Spanish National Police who have broken up an organisation which defrauded an estimated two million Euros in the "Nigerian letters fraud", and a variant of a false inheritance.

There 18 arrests made in Madrid, 4 in Albacete, and one in Ciudad Real. The nationalities of those arrested are Nigerian, Spanish and Romanian.

A statement from the National Police said that they laundered the enormous profits from their scams, and pretended that they were building a commercial centre in Lagos, Nigeria, similar they said to the one in Alcobendas in Madrid.

Thousands of letters and emails were sent out daily to potential victims in an attempt to convince them that they were about to receive an important sum of money, from an inheritance of an unknown relative, or that they had won a prize in the Spanish lottery. However to get their money they had to pay a sum for administration and taxes which is where the fraudsters made their money. They even arranged interviews in luxury hotels and showed up in top of the range vehicles to try and make the frauds stick.

Police have carried out 12 searches and found false dollar bills, names and addresses of potential foreign victims, hundreds of prepared envelopes, more than 90 mobile phones and computer material. 54 bank accounts have been blocked and three properties and three vehicles embargoed.

The investigation started last August when the authorities in Denmark raised the alarm, after a Danish subject had fallen victim to the Spanish group.

Police called as Nigerian ex-politician sentenced in London

LONDON Police were called to a London court on Monday where a former Nigerian state governor, James Ibori, was due to be sentenced over a fraud involving $250 million of state funds.
   Three police vans, five cars and a helicopter were deployed to Southwark Crown Court on the first day of a two-day sentencing hearing, after reports of a disturbance inside, a source said.
   Witnesses said supporters of Ibori, who was governor of Nigeria's oil-rich Delta State between 1999 and 2007, became loud and aggressive when they were excluded from the packed courtroom.
   "We were there to provide assistance because it was oversubscribed -- there were just too many people to get in," a police spokeswoman said, adding that order had been quickly restored.
   A court spokesman confirmed there had been overcrowding and that the start of the hearing had been delayed.
   Ibori has faced corruption charges in Nigeria and in Britain, where he was pursued by a police unit which investigates the activities of foreign officials who seek to launder stolen assets in Britain.
   Scotland Yard says that during his two terms as governor, Ibori "systematically stole funds from the public purse, secreting them in bank accounts across the world", in a fraud worth $250 million.
   Despite earning less than $25,000 a year, his portfolio included a ?2.2 million house in the upmarket London district of Hampstead and a ?3.2 million mansion in Johannesburg's wealthy Sandton district in South Africa.
   He owned a $20 million jet and a fleet of armoured Range Rovers and spent money on fees for exclusive British boarding schools and expensive hotels.
   In February, Ibori pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to launder money, five of money laundering and one of obtaining a property transfer by deception.
   He also admitted conspiracy to defraud, conspiracy to make false instruments, and one count of money laundering linked to a $37 million share fraud surrounding the sale of shares in Nigerian company V Mobile.
   The 49-year-old is expected to learn his sentence on Tuesday.

Nigerian police rescues pregnant girls from 'baby factory'

LAGOS Nigerian police have raided an alleged illegal orphanage where they rescued young women thought to have been forced to bear children with the aim of selling them, a spokesman said on Friday.
   "We discovered the baby factory in Uruah local government area of the state during a raid following a tip-off," assistant police superintendent Oyekachi Orji said of the operation in southern Akwa Ibom state.
   He said seven women between the ages of 18 and 20, including three who were pregnant, were freed from the home during the April 4 operation. No babies were discovered.
   Three suspects including the owner, his wife and another accomplice were arrested, he said.
   "The suspects usually lure young girls to get pregnant with a promise of 70,000 Naira (340 euros, $445) after having their babies, which they sell to ritualists," he said.
   A number of such "factories" have been discovered Nigeria, often intending to sell children to childless couples.
   Human trafficking is widespread in west Africa, where children are bought from their families to work in plantations, mines and factories or as domestic help.
   Others are sold into prostitution, and less commonly they are tortured or sacrificed in black magic rituals.
  

Facebook buys Instagram for $1 bn

  Washington Facebook is purchasing Instagram, the very popular photo sharing company, for $1 billion in a combination of cash and stock, the social networking giant's founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced.   
 "For years, we've focused on building the best experience for sharing photos with your friends and family," Zuckerberg wrote in a Facebook post.
"Now, we'll be able to work even more closely with the Instagram team to also offer the best experiences for sharing beautiful mobile photos with people based on your interests."      While Facebook is expected to integrate Instagram more closely with its web and app offerings, Zuckerberg also said that it will build and grow the Instagram app independently. 
"Millions of people around the world love the Instagram app and the brand associated with it, and our goal is to help spread this app and brand to even more people." 
Founded in 2010 by Mike Krieger and Kevin Systrom, Instagram has just a handful of employees supporting its wildly popular photo app, which lets users add distinctive filters and visual flair to photos they've snapped on their smartphones. 
The long-awaited Android version, released last week, racked up more than 1 million downloads in just 12 hours. The launch also met a backlash from iPhone users, who enjoyed having an exclusive hold on the stylish service. It's Facebook's biggest acquisition ever, in both price and reach. With around 30 million active users, Instagram has the largest audience of any startup Facebook has purchased, but Zuckerberg said these types of deals won't be frequent. 
"We don't plan on doing many more of these, if any at all," Zuckerberg wrote. "But providing the best photo sharing experience is one reason why so many people love Facebook and we knew it would be worth bringing these two companies together."  

Africa's richest man donates to Congo blast victims

LAGOS Africa's richest man, Nigerian Aliko Dangote, has donated $500,000 to victims of last month's munitions blasts in Congo which killed at least 282 people, his group said on Tuesday..
   Dangote made the donation at the weekend in the Congolese capital Brazzaville with a pledge to increase his charity works as well as create more jobs for Africans this year.
   "About this philanthropy, I think from this year, I personally want to take it very seriously. I want to be much more aggressive than what we have had in the past," he said in a statement.
   Speaking at the occasion, Congolese President Denis Sassou-Nguesso said that his government has started reconstruction of houses affected in the blasts, adding that "this contribution will go a long way in building new houses for the victims," the statement said.
   Dangote, rated by Forbes as Africa's richest man with vast interests in oil and gas, banking, flour, sugar and food production in Nigeria, also operates in about a dozen other African countries.
   The powerful March 4 blasts in Brazzaville, blamed on a short-circuit and fire, killed at least 282 people, injured 2,300 more and destroyed hundreds of homes around the munitions depot, leaving 14,000 people homeless.

Nigeria names ambassador to Qatar

DOHA NIGERIA government has appointed a resident ambassador to Qatar. The ambassador-designate is Sanni Bala Salauwa, a career diplomat.
Before Bala’s appointment, Nigeria’s ambassador to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has been serving as the concurrent ambassador to the UAE and Qatar.
The new ambassador will resume duty in Qatar after formal presentation of his letter of credence to Qatar government and establishment of the embassy.
Speaking at an event on Friday, President of Nigerians in Diaspora, Qatar Chapter (NIDO-Qatar) OJ Millar said Nigeria government officials have informed him of the new development.
“We are happy that our quest for the establishment of a Nigeria embassy in Doha is becoming a reality.
The presence of the mission in Qatar will create trade and investment opportunities for both countries and provide quick diplomatic action and response to issues affecting Nigerians in Qatar,” he said.

He said Nigerians resident in Qatar have endured the absence of embassy and consular support in Qatar for so long. He pointed out that NIDO-Qatar has worked tirelessly over the past ten years to make this happen.

“The effort started in 2005 at a meeting on the issue to the former president of Nigeria Chief Olusegun Obasanjo and the then Minister of Foreign Affairs Ambassador Olu Adeniji during their visit to the G77+China conference in Qatar,” Millar said.
He said the group continued with its request for opening the embassy with several communications to subsequent administration and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The new arrangement is in fulfilment of a promise made by Nigeria Vice- President Namadi Sambo during his visit to Qatar for attending the inaugural Summit of the Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF).
Millar noted that a civil air transport relationship was signed between Nigeria and Qatar (Qatar Airways and the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority) five years ago on the Bilateral Air Traffic Service Agreement resulting in Qatar airway direct flight to Nigeria.
Hence, Nigerians in Qatar are very excited over the news of the new embassy, which will no doubt strengthen the relationship and cooperation between Qatar and Nigeria in many areas, including cultural, bilateral trade and investment.

Iyeke Onyerhovwo, first public relations officer the Nigerian group in Qatar said, “On behalf of the founding fathers of Dohanaija, we congratulate the Nigeria community in Qatar on the occasion of the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria Goodluck Jonathan, establishing a Nigeria Embassy in Qatar. This great achievement, was the noble 'objective' of the founding fathers of the Nigeria community in Qatar (Dohanaija), that metamorphosed  into NIDO-QATAR, whose current executive members led by  OJ Miller pursued to a successful conclusion; many thanks to the current Executive.”

“Our collective joy, is that the labour and struggle of this noble organisation since the summer of 2001, was not in vain and that it has been realised in our lifetime,” he added

The new ambassador is expected to resume in Qatar soon after all preliminaries between the two countries have been agreed and concluded. 

According to Foreign ministry spokesperson, Ode Ogbole, the Federal Government was waiting for responses from the foreign countries before issuing letters of credence to the new ambassadors.

“The sending state (Nigeria) will seek the approval or agreement of the receiving country by sending the ambassador’s credentials for verification before appointing an Ambassador or High Commissioner to a post or country,” he said.

US, Africa in unprecedented race to head World Bank

WASHINGTON  The United States nominated a Korean-American Ivy League college head to lead the World Bank on Friday as African countries mounted an unprecedented challenge for the powerful job.
   President Barack Obama proposed Jim Yong Kim, the president of Dartmouth College and a physician who has worked for decades in global health issues, to lead the huge poverty-fighting institution.
   Hours earlier, Africa's leading economies South Africa, Angola and Nigeria announced their support for Nigerian Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, a former high-level World Bank official, for the job.
   With both being called credible candidates to replace outgoing president Robert Zoellick, it promised to be the first-ever contested race for a job  traditionally decided by Washington, as the Bank's biggest shareholder.
   Thanks to a tacit agreement, the United States has always chosen the head of the World Bank, and has always named an American, while Europe has always named one of its own to head the International Monetary Fund.
   But that pact has triggered outrage from developing and emerging economies seeking greater representation to reflect their rising contributions to the global economy.
   The job is crucial, overseeing the 187-nation Bank's mission to provide financial and technical assistance to countries struggling to rise out of poverty.
   The Washington-based bank lent $57.3 billion last year and has more than 9,000 employees worldwide.
   The surprise choice of a physician little-known beyond academic and global health circles marked a break with Washington's usual candidates tapped from politics or Wall Street.
   A Harvard-trained doctor and anthropologist, Kim, 52, is the former director of the department of HIV/AIDS at the World Health Organization. He became the president of Dartmouth, in New Hampshire, in July 2009.
   "It's time for a development professional to lead the world's largest development agency," Obama said in a Rose Garden news conference with Kim at his side.
   "Jim has spent more than two decades working to improve conditions in developing countries around the world," the president said.
   Obama said the World Bank's mission of lifting nations from poverty to prosperity "makes the world stronger and more secure for everybody.
   "I believe that nobody is more qualified to carry out that mission than Doctor Jim Kim."
   The US nomination of Kim, who was born in Seoul and moved with his family to the United States at the age of five, makes him an instant favorite to get the bank's top job.
   France, another big Bank stakeholder, appeared supportive.
   "The principle is that there is this choice by the United States at the World Bank and the Europeans at the IMF. There is no reason at this point to change that," French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe told AFP.
   But Okonjo-Iweala could mount a stiff challenge. She is a respected former World Bank managing director who joined Nigeria's government as finance minister in August.
   She unveiled her candidacy earlier on Friday in Pretoria, flanked by counterparts from South Africa and Angola.   "I consider the World Bank a very important institution for the world and particularly for developing countries deserving of the best leadership," she said.    "So I look forward to a contest of very strong candidates, and am I confident? Absolutely."
   "I have long experience in the World Bank, in government and in diplomacy and I look forward to giving you my vision at the appropriate time," she said.
   Two others have also been in the race for the job, as self-declared candidates: former Colombian finance minister and central bank chief Jose Antonio Ocampo, and American development economist Jeffrey Sachs.
   But Sachs withdrew on Friday and endorsed Kim.
   "Jim Kim is a superb nominee for WB," Sachs tweeted.