International 'Net scam reaches Bloomfield man

An unidentified Bloomfield man has been roped into a large scale scam reaching half of the way around the globe.

"He responded to a personal ad on an Internet dating website with the intention of sparking a romantic interest," said Bloomfield Police Chief Jason Curtman. "He began having conversations with her over the Internet and she said her occupation was a buyer, seller and trader."

She then told the man that her warehouse was filling up and she needed a place to store some stuff. The lady then asked if she could have some items shipped to his home and in a few weeks she would come pick them up and they could meet for the first time.

He agreed and within days, packages began arriving at the man's house from Banana Republic, Frederick's of Hollywood, Urban Outfitters and numerous other Internet shopping sites.

The lady, who claimed to be from Alton, Ill., remained in contact with the gentleman for some time until Curtman received an interesting phone call.

"I got a call from a credit card holder in Oregon who stated that his credit card number had been stolen and that he noticed on his bill that items were purchased with his credit card and shipped to here in Bloomfield," Curtman said.

"He gave me the name of the gentleman it was shipped to," he said. "I contacted him and he said he thought something was suspicious, but he didn't understand what was going on, but he cooperated fully."

Curtman then contacted the U.S. Secret Service which is responsible for investigating mail fraud cases.

He then confiscated all of the packages the man had received. Out of the 15 or so packages, billing names and addresses were found from California, Washington, Rhode Island, Oregon, Florida, Wyoming, Ohio and New Jersey.

None were purchased from Alton, Ill., where the lady claimed to reside.

The day before the lady was expected to come visit and pick up her packages, she called Bloomfield and told the man she had fallen ill and wouldn't be able to make the trip.

She then asked him to place the packages in one box and have it weighed and she would send him a shipping label.

"We told him whatever you do you're not shipping them back," he said. " We got him to say 'Hey you promised me you were going to come down here so if you want your packages you're going to have to come get them so I can take you to dinner.'"

Curtman said that apparently she guessed on the weight and sent a shipping label anyway, but that's where the story gets interesting.

"The shipping label was to go to Nigeria," he said.

The name the package was to ship to was Shola Adewumi. Curtman decided to do a Google search on the name and up popped some surprising information.

Instead of being a 28-year-old white female, the Bloomfield man appears to have been talking to a 43-year-old black Nigerian male.

Adewumi is wanted by the U.S. Postal Service for bank fraud, money laundering, mail theft, mail fraud and aiding and abetting.

"I think it's the same guy, but I may be wrong," Curtman said. "If it's not him, then I'm betting he has agents working for him."

The charges for which Adewumi is currently wanted are virtually identical to the charges he would face in this case and Curtman believes he is responsible.

"Right now the case is dead in the water," he said. The Secret Service said that the Nigerian government is not very cooperative in these types of cases and more than likely nothing will ever come of it.

The personal ad authorities believe to have been posted by Adewumi, was on http://www.elitemate.com . It's a website that bills itself as 'a worldwide community of singles where they can communicate and experience an elite love life.'

"There are a lot of people who answer these personal ads," he said. "If you've got a personal ad you want to answer, if the person looks like a model, that should be a clue. People who look like professional models aren't looking for dates online."

He also suggested that if there is a short bio of the person and it's written in broken English, but the person claims to be from a place where that would be uncommon, then you should also be very careful.

With scams and internet fraud ever more prevalent, Curtman said one should always exercise caution.

Corey Noles can be contacted via e-mail at cnoles@dailystatesman.com