By Abdulraheem Kawthar Adenike | Fact Frontier.
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Officers from the Nigeria Police Force National Cybercrime Centre have broken up a romance scam operation run by a family. They arrested a mother and her daughter for defrauding a person in Malta of more than N18 million. The suspects are now in custody, and the way they carried out the scheme shows how they succeeded in taking both money and trust over a long period.
The scam worked because of a simple but effective approach: using love and trust as tools. Police reports say the group included 39-year-old Urowhe Diana, her 22-year-old daughter Rokibat Oluwasheyi Imoru, and the stepfather Emmanuel Amanfo, who is still on the run. Each member had a clear role, and they used their family connections to support a crime that reached across borders.
The first step was to create a false online identity. Investigators believe Amanfo was the one who built this fake persona. The police have not shared the exact name or details used, but they described the method as one that relied heavily on emotional manipulation. The fraudsters did not stop at a fake photo and name; they built a full life story. They spent weeks or months slowly building a romantic relationship with the victim in Malta. By pretending to share the victim’s dreams and concerns, they broke down defences and built a sense of closeness that would later be used to ask for money.
Once the emotional connection was strong, the fraudsters began to request funds. Amanfo and his stepdaughter Rokibat are said to have opened and managed several Nigerian bank accounts just for receiving money. The victim, believing they were helping a romantic partner through a difficult time or planning a future together, sent money many times. The transfers were made through money transfer operators and direct bank deposits. In total, the victim sent over N18 million. The money was not scattered; it was carefully moved through accounts controlled by the family.
This is where Rokibat’s role became very important. She was not simply helping; she acted as a money mule. Her accounts served as the first stop for the stolen funds, breaking the direct link between the victim and the final receiver. This method of moving money through multiple accounts is known as layering, a common way to hide the trail of illegal funds. But the scheme went further. To clean the money, the funds were then transferred regularly into an Ecobank account owned by the mother, Urowhe Diana. By gathering the stolen millions in her own account, she turned the fraudulent income into money that could be spent openly on personal needs.
For a while, this plan worked without problems. The three individuals took advantage of the anonymity of the internet and the trust built in a romantic relationship. They hid behind normal banking processes. The victim stayed emotionally involved and did not suspect the truth until it was too late. However, the same digital actions that helped the crime also left a trail. The Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU) noticed suspicious transactions connected to the accounts. This alert allowed the cybercrime centre to carry out a deep examination of digital records. Investigators carefully studied the suspects’ online footprints and linked the fake persona, the receiving accounts, and the family members together.
The police have gathered strong evidence from the two arrested suspects. The investigation is still ongoing, and efforts to find and arrest Amanfo continue. A police spokesperson stated that the mother and daughter will be taken to court once the investigation is complete. This case shows clearly how modern romance scams work. They do not depend on complex technology. Instead, they succeed through the careful and intentional abuse of human feelings, carried out by a family that treated dishonesty as a regular business.
