A romance scammer wove an elaborate web to defraud a woman out of £150,000 in the name of love. Penniless asylum seeker Frank Adozi is actually gay - but he targeted this one woman and many more - to get his hands on their cash.
Adozi, 32, of Kneeton Vale, Sherwood, had a fake profile on dating website "Our Time" of a middle-aged oil rig worker in search of love. But it was all lies. Using the false name Mark McCarthy, he was also attracting women to give him their cash on Tinder and other online sites and amassed a further £40,000 from them.
It happened 14 months after he was released from his last sentence of four-and-half years for perverting the course of justice and two frauds, where he set up a false ID and exploited others. His main victim, who wishes to remain anonoymous, met him on "Our Time" after her relationship ended.
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Adozi explained he grew up overseas, had a daughter,Tamara, attending boarding school in New York and claimed he worked away a lot. "That was all fiction," Luc Chignell, prosecuting told Nottingham Crown Court on Friday, April 1.
Adozi's first efforts to get cash from her was on March 27, 2021, when he explained his fictitious daughter, who had trouble with her cards, needed money for a taxi. Sympathetic, the victim sent him £370.
More payments followed for a variety of excuses and eventually came to £157,332.25 in just two-and-a-half months, Nottingham Crown Court heard. She stopped sending him money when she realised he was lying. He claimed he was taking a flight from Dubai. When she checked, there was no flight.
First she contacted Action Fraud, who referred the matter to Nottinghamshire Police. Detective Constable Carl Miller, from the fraud department, said another man, who remains on the run, had posted Adozi's fake profile and paid his subscription.
Adozi was circulated as "wanted" and was actually caught in a flash Range Rover Sport car on a police stop for a suspected traffic offence. DC Miller told Nottinghamshire Live Adozi's offence was "completely cruel".
Adozi was jailed for four years after admitting the offence involving the main victim, and asked for six further frauds - some successful, some not - to be taken into consideration, as well as two money laundering offences. He was handed a restraining order for five years.
The victim said it had, "ruined her life". Susan Gregson-Murray, mitigating, said Adozi, who was dressed casually in the dock, had expressed extreme remorse. The Range Range was registered in the accomplice's name, who took 40% of the defrauded cash, with Adozi keeping 60%.
Some of the money went to pay debts in Nigeria. Recorder Stuart Sprawson adjourned a proceeds of crime application, effectively to investigate the money trail, to July 15.
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