South Africa to extradite 6 Nigerians to US over online romance scams
&imwidth=600&imheight=450&format=webp&quality=medium "South Africa to extradite 6 Nigerians to US over online romance scams")
Representative image. Photograph: (Magnific)
The Hawks police unit confirmed that among their reported victims were pensioners and businesspeople, who were targeted through elaborate online relationships designed to defraud them of their money.
South African police are set to extradite six Nigerian nationals to the United States as they are suspected of being members of the Black Axe organised crime syndicate involved in alleged online romance scams and cyberfraud, police said on Friday (Saturday). These individuals are wanted in the US by FBI agents on charges of money laundering and defrauding more than 100 women.
The accused men reported defrauding the women in the US of more than 100 million rand ($6.2 million) using online romance scams, according to South Africa's elite Hawks police unit. The six Nigerian nationals were arrested in South Africa in 2021. The syndicate Black Axe is a Nigerian mafia-style gang tied to human trafficking, internet fraud and murder.
Fraud, money-laundering charges
They will be handed over to officials from the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation and the US Secret Service on Friday afternoon at Cape Town International Airport, according to the Hawks. She added that they would face wire fraud and money-laundering charges once they arrive in the US. This extradition follows the arrest of other suspected Black Axe members in Switzerland and Spain earlier this year.
The Hawks police unit also stated that among their reported victims were pensioners and businesspeople, who were targeted through elaborate online relationships designed to defraud them of their money.
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The group, Black Axe rosed from a student fraternity in the late 1970s called the Neo Black Movement of Africa. Since then, the syndicate has evolved into a structured, violent criminal organisation frequently dealing in financial cybercrime.
FBI launched operations against Black Axe in November 2019 and September 2021. Over 35 individuals were charged with multi-million-dollar internet fraud. Since then, there have been multiple other operations in several countries targeting Black Axe, in coordination with the global policing agency Interpol.
