Perth police arrest Nigerian scammer after attempted house sale fraud of absentee landlord's $785,000 Falcon property
An eight month investigation by Western Australian Police working with WA Consumer Protection has resulted in an arrest in Nigeria over the alleged attempted fraudulent $785,000 sale of a home in Western Australia.
The Australian authorities thwarted the sale of the house in Falcon, south of Perth, after a tip-off by the suspicious local estate agent.
The husband and wife owners of the home are based in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Ntuen Promise Ekenmini, 27, was apprehended by Nigerian authorities when he went to collect documents using a fake driver's licence in the name of the home owner.
Police allege the attempted fraud began when a man contacted the property manager of a Mandurah real estate agency last December pretending to be the owner of a home requesting documents relating to the rented property.
He allegedly used an email address in the name of one of the real owners requesting all future correspondence be forwarded it to the new email address.
On 18 January, 2013 the agency received a request to sell the property with a sales agreement with false signatures returned to the agent, along with copies of fake passports. There was also a forged document purporting to be from the Australian High Commission in Pretoria confirming their identity.
It was then the estate agent became suspicious and reported the attempted fraud to the agency principal, Kent Murphy from Mandurah Estate Agency and authorities.At one stage instructions were given to deposit $785,000 into a bank account in South East Asia, Detective Senior Sergeant Dom Blackshaw said. The Major Fraud Squad of the Western Australia Police worked with the Australian Federal Police (AFP) along with authorities in South Africa and Nigeria.
Police are investigating whether the matter was linked to several cases of real estate fraud in WA as six of the seven cases involved owners who lived in South Africa. Only two got to the stage of its actual sale. The first successful property fraud in Western Australia was reported in September 2010 when home owner Roger Mildenhall, based in South Africa, discovered his investment home in Karrinyup had been sold for $485,000 in August 2010 without his knowledge or consent by the agent who was managing the property on his behalf.
In April 2011, a home in Ballajura owned by a couple who were living in Nigeria at the time, was sold for $410,000 allegedly by Nigerian fraudsters. The fraudulent sale was not reported until August 2011 when the owners returned to Perth wanting to inspect the property.
In both cases the funds were transferred to bank accounts in China.
All had investment properties in Perth which were rented.
"There's every chance that these people are the same offenders, however we are working with the police in Nigeria to identify whether that is the case," he said.
The WA Consumer Affairs commissioner Anne Driscoll said the threat to absentee property owners, especially those in Africa, had not diminished and urged expatriate landlords to set up clear communication protocols which could not be altered.
In November 2011, the code of conduct for WA real estate agents and sales representatives and settlement agents (conveyancers) was strengthened to incorporate strict identity verification guidelines for all transactions, particularly involving overseas owners. The Western Australian Government’s land titles office, Landgate, put in place strict fraud prevention measures.