{"id":11402,"date":"2019-09-29T17:55:08","date_gmt":"2019-09-29T17:55:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nigeriastandardnewspaper.com\/ng\/?p=5823"},"modified":"2019-09-29T17:55:08","modified_gmt":"2019-09-29T17:55:08","slug":"heartless-nigerias-convicted-drug-importer-in-australia-patrick-nweke-inside-sydneys-villawood-detention-centre-smuggled-several-mobile-phones-to-dupe-an-american-disability-pensioner-us400000","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nigeriastandardnewspaper.com\/a\/heartless-nigerias-convicted-drug-importer-in-australia-patrick-nweke-inside-sydneys-villawood-detention-centre-smuggled-several-mobile-phones-to-dupe-an-american-disability-pensioner-us400000\/","title":{"rendered":"HEARTLESS! Nigeria’s Convicted Drug importer in Australia, PATRICK NWEKE inside Sydney’s Villawood Detention centre smuggled several mobile phones to dupe an American disability pensioner $US400,000…creates Fake Romance scheme, later tricked Peter Strand into Trafficking drugs to evade customs *Coordinate operatives in Europe, South America, Africa, Asia and Australia to lure Strand to Sydney airport with 2.5 kilograms of cocaine * Suspect criminal network target the elderly and vulnerable to become couriers * Strand lost his job as an electrical salesman, his marriage crumbled * \u201cI received an email from a scammer posing as a Nigerian Government official offering to help retrieve funds. It was extremely well organised. That’s mind-boggling, absolutely mind-boggling and let alone out of Australia, but out of a detention facility \u2014 how is that possible?\u201d-Victim * \u201cThey would coordinate their travel arrangements, they would put them up in hotels, they would provide them with money, aeroplane tickets and then upon receipt, they would take acceptance of the drugs and introduce them into the market. Mr Strand as a prize catch because he was broke, sick and frail. The people controlling the man are in Spain\u201d-Australian Police BY TINA IBIDUN\/SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT, SYDNEY & GEORGE ELIJAH OTUMU\/AMERICAN FOREIGN BUREAU CHIEF"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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HEARTLESS!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nigeria’s\nConvicted Drug importer in Australia, PATRICK NWEKE inside Sydney’s\nVillawood Detention centre smuggled several mobile phones to dupe an\nAmerican<\/strong>\ndisability pensioner $US400,000<\/strong>…creates\nFake Romance scheme, later tricked Peter Strand into Trafficking\ndrugs to evade customs <\/strong>\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*Coordinate\noperatives in Europe, South America, Africa, Asia and Australia to\nlure Strand to Sydney airport with 2.5 kilograms of cocaine\n<\/strong>\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*\nSuspect criminal network target\nthe elderly and vulnerable to become couriers <\/strong>\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

* Strand\nlost his job as an electrical salesman, his marriage\ncrumbled<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

* \u201cI\nreceived an\nemail from a scammer posing as a Nigerian Government official\noffering to help retrieve funds. It was extremely well organised.\nThat’s mind-boggling, absolutely mind-boggling and let alone out of\nAustralia, but out of a detention facility \u2014 how is that\npossible?\u201d-Victim <\/strong>\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

* \u201c<\/strong>They\nwould coordinate their travel arrangements, they would put them up in\nhotels, they would provide them with money, aeroplane tickets and\nthen upon receipt, they would take acceptance of the drugs and\nintroduce them into the market. Mr Strand as a prize catch because he\nwas broke, sick and frail. The people controlling the man are in\nSpain\u201d-Australian Police<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

BY TINA IBIDUN\/SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT, SYDNEY &\nGEORGE ELIJAH OTUMU\/AMERICAN FOREIGN BUREAU CHIEF<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

HE’S REGARDED ONE OF THE\nWORLD GLOBAL DRUG CZARS. HE IS A NIGERIAN BORN MAN, PATRICK NWEKE\nearlier convicted for drug importation in Australia. He was charged\nfor crimes again recently having found that as at the time he was\nheld inside Sydney’s Villawood Detention, he had smuggled in 10\nmobile phones to deceive an innocent American, Peter Strand to the\ntune of $400,000 after he created a fake romance scheme and\ndeceitfully coerce him along the way as a mule into conveying a 2.5\nkilograms of cocaine for their\ncriminal network. <\/strong>\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Phone\ntaps recorded inside Sydney’s Villawood Immigration Detention Centre\nhave uncovered the inner workings of a global fraud and drug\ntrafficking network that used a serial scam victim to smuggle drugs\ninto Australia.\nThe\nphone intercepts, obtained by Four Corners, reveal how Nigerian\ndetainee and convicted drug importer Nweke directed and financed the\noperation using an American disability pensioner, who he had never\nmet, as a drug mule. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nweke,\n44, was recorded by the NSW Crime Commission and NSW Police as he\nused smuggled phones to coordinate with operatives in Europe, South\nAmerica, Africa, Asia and Australia to lure Peter Strand, 65, to\nSydney airport with 2.5 kilograms of cocaine. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A\nFour Corners investigation found Nweke’s syndicate was part of a\nworldwide network of crime organisations that originated in Nigeria\nand are now making billions of dollars a year from online fraud, drug\nsmuggling and money laundering. The crime groups have spread into\nAustralia, where NSW Police allege they have continued to operate\ninside the Villawood detention centre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nFor the\nrecords, in a separate case last October, police arrested a second\nNigerian detainee who allegedly used 16 contraband phones inside\nVillawood to run a syndicate that allegedly defrauded Australian\nromance scam victims and businesses of nearly $3 million.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nRomance\nscam victims like Mr Strand are at the heart of the network’s\nruthless business \u2014 conned out of their savings and often exploited\nas mules to launder money and, in some cases, to transport drugs\nthrough death penalty countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n“It\nwas extremely well organised,” Mr Strand told Four Corners in\nthe town of Fox River Grove, near Chicago, where he has returned\nafter spending 18 months in a Sydney jail accused of importing\ncocaine. “That’s mind-boggling, absolutely mind-boggling and let\nalone out of Australia, but out of a detention facility \u2014 how is\nthat possible? The\nNew South Wales Crime Commission stumbled upon the operation to lure\nMr Strand from the US when they heard Nweke on calls in 2013 to a\nChinese-Australian money launderer who specialised in shifting vast\nsums of money offshore for Sydney drug syndicates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nAccordingly,\nfrom November 2013 to April 2014, the Commission and NSW Police\ntapped 10 mobile services Nweke used inside Villawood to secretly\ncall Nigerian contacts in South Africa, Brazil, Nigeria, India and\nAustralia. At the time, Nweke was fighting deportation from Australia\nover his previous conviction for importing cocaine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nNweke\nbragged on the phone about his ability to bring in “birds”\n\u2014 stooges to smuggle drugs on planes. “I don’t put myself at\nthe frontline,” he said. “I like to put other people\nthere.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nHe\nput out the call to his operatives to find a Westerner who would\nescape the attention of Australian Customs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr Strand\nhad lost his job as an electrical salesman, his marriage and later\n$US400,000 ($564,320) to a series of romance scams, when he received\nan email in November 2013 from a scammer posing as a Nigerian\nGovernment official offering to help retrieve the funds.\nWithin days,\nthe ailing diabetic was in constant contact via email and on the\nphone with the official who called himself “Bricks Manuel”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The\nintensity of the communications with Bricks at some point was almost\nevery day, sometimes two or three times a day, sometimes in the\nmiddle of the night,” Mr Strand said. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“It\nwas virtually around the clock.” After months of communication\nbetween Mr Strand and “Bricks”, Nweke received word from a\ncontact in Nigeria that a potential courier in Chicago had been\nsourced by scammers in Europe. The people controlling the man are in\nSpain,” the operative told Nweke.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\noperative, who called himself Kelvin, described Mr Strand as a prize\ncatch because he was broke, sick and frail. “The man is the\nbest,” Kelvin said. “He moves about with a built-in oxygen\npipe \u2014 that is how he breathes, so no-one will even stop him. You\nwill even pity him when you see him.” Another operative told\nNweke “the guy is very good for what you need him for, his age\nis good, he has something in his heart that helps him breathe”. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nweke\nbankrolled the high-risk operation and planned to distribute shares\nof the profits through his international network, which his calls\nrevealed spread into Spain, Austria, the Philippines, China, Japan\nand Bangladesh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Does this\nman know what he is doing?” Nweke asked in another call.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“What he\nknows, he is doing chemicals,” Kelvin said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“What they\nare told is that they are carrying chemicals used in producing money.\nThat is what the marketers tell them.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr Strand was\ntold he was collecting chemicals to literally launder money, an\noutlandish scam used with surprising success by West African\nsyndicates as one way to convince travellers to carry drugs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Supposedly\nthis cash that I was going to be getting was marked with some type of\ndye, which needed to be cleaned off in order for me to get clean\ncash,” Mr Strand said.”The cash was in turn supposed to be\nfor me, but I never got it.” \nMr Strand was sent on three trips to South America. “There were\npeople during the course of all these trips that would seem to come\nout of the woodwork,” Mr Strand said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“There was a\nnetwork of people who God knows how these people all fit together.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Australian police\nwere waiting for Mr Strand when he landed at Sydney airport on a\nflight from Brazil on April 29, 2014. Customs officers found 2.5\nkilograms of pure cocaine mixed with other chemicals inside two\nprotein powder containers in a bag he had brought from Brazil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr Strand was\namong 44 drug mules arrested at Australian airports between 2013 and\n2016 after being drawn in by criminal syndicates, many of them\nunwittingly, using online scams. Mr Strand’s barrister, David Barrow,\nrepresented several of them. “He wasn’t the only one who fell\nfor it,” Mr Barrow said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n“He\nwas identified as the type of gullible person who was vulnerable to\nthis type of manipulation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n“It\nwas tailor-made to meet the need to manipulate him and they had real\ninsights into what made him tick. They were able to respond to him in\nways that constantly reassured him \u2026 They knew how to mollify him,\nto reassure him, to manipulate his emotions.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nAs Mr\nBarrow trawled through hundreds of emails between Mr Strand and his\nscammers, as well as five months of intercepted calls in and out of\nVillawood, the criminal lawyer and Crown prosecutor detected a\ncriminal methodology he had never witnessed before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n“They\nseemed to be like a vertically integrated company,” Mr Barrow\ntold Four Corners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n“They\nwere able to source the drugs from particular places \u2014 in this case\nfrom Brazil but from places like China as well. “They had people\non the ground there who obviously were able to transmit funds for the\npayment of the drugs, they were able to source gullible couriers like\nMr Strand who were white, who were ‘respectable’, who weren’t going\nto be closely looked at as they travelled through international\nborders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n“They\nwould coordinate their travel arrangements, they would put them up in\nhotels, they would provide them with money, aeroplane tickets and\nthen upon receipt, they would take acceptance of the drugs and\nintroduce them into the market, whichever country they got to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n“It\nwas a well-tried and I think well-practised approach.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nMr Strand\nwas found not guilty of drug importation after a trial in the NSW\nDistrict Court.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nNweke was\nconvicted of drug importation last year and is due to be sentenced\nnext month for his leadership role in a global crime network.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

HEARTLESS! Nigeria’s Convicted Drug importer in Australia, PATRICK NWEKE inside Sydney’s Villawood Detention centre smuggled several mobile phones to dupe an American disability pensioner $US400,000…creates Fake Romance scheme, later tricked Peter Strand into Trafficking drugs to evade customs *Coordinate operatives in Europe, South America, Africa, Asia and Australia to lure Strand to Sydney airport with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5824,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[105],"tags":[129,130],"class_list":{"0":"post-11402","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-crime","8":"tag-africa","9":"tag-nigeria-2"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nigeriastandardnewspaper.com\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11402","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nigeriastandardnewspaper.com\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nigeriastandardnewspaper.com\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nigeriastandardnewspaper.com\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nigeriastandardnewspaper.com\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11402"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nigeriastandardnewspaper.com\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11402\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nigeriastandardnewspaper.com\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5824"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nigeriastandardnewspaper.com\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nigeriastandardnewspaper.com\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nigeriastandardnewspaper.com\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}