The Man Who Sold An Imaginary Airport For $242 Million

imagine selling an imaginary airport for 242 million dollars how can one even begin to imagine something like this many of us receive spam emails frequently and Nigeria in particular is famous for this type of scam you 'll receive an email from a person who claims to be a prince a doctor or a bank manager and he tells you that there is a large amount of money and he needs your help in transferring this amount to the country in return you will take a large part of this amount but all you need to do is to

send a small amount in advance in order to verify your bank account before they start transferring millions of dollars to you one of the classic scam methods from when humans started using email but the scam that we will see today was before the internet era originally these internet scammers are just rookies in front of the Nigerian king of swindlers who we will see in today's story about how he sold a fake airport for 242 million dollars in 1995 the manager of the Brazilian Morrow Este Bank received a call from Nigeria the caller on the other

end was not an ordinary Nigerian citizen scholar was the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria Central Bank is the highest Financial organization in the country and it is the one that controls all the banks in the country and determines the financial policies the governor of the central bank is considered to have the rank of a minister meaning the director of the noro Este Bank thinking it was very serious that the governor of the Central Bank of a country called you the topic is definitely important the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria started to

speak and said that Nigeria is planning to build an airport in the capital city Abuja Abuja is one of the largest cities in Nigeria and the number of people in it is very large certainly if an airport is built in it there will be a large movement on it here the interest of the director of the Brazilian bank increased and he began to listen more carefully the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria continued his speech he said Nigeria is currently looking for investors to invest in the airport project and the estimated cost is about

250 million dollars all of this is available to you and we are presenting this opportunity to more than one bank around the world I mean it was as if he was saying that you need to hurry if you do not seize the opportunity quickly another bank may come and take it the Brazilian bank manager was thinking of airports in large cities around the world as one of the most lucrative projects an average size airport can return the initial investment which is 250 million dollars within a year or two this means that this chance might be

an Irreplaceable opportunity so the director of the Brazilian bank came to think a little while he was holding the phone but the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria Cut the Rope of thoughts when he said and also we will give you as a bank manager a special offer you will have a commission of 10 million dollars since you are the mediator who will allow this deal to take place the manager of the Brazilian bank felt an increase in enthusiasm he already thinks that this is a distinguished investment opportunity for the bank but after he

heard he will take 10 million dollars on top of it this deal started to look even more attractive in the end he is not investing his money he is investing the money of the bank's customers the people who deposited their money in the bank and the thing made him care less in the end after some back and forth he took a bid with the governor of the Nigerian Bank he said okay our bank is going to take this investment opportunity and started with the procedures the director of the Brazilian bank did not know he was

not talking to the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria but he was talking to a person named Emmanuel Noti Emmanuel did not have any business in building an airport in fact there was no airport in the first place the whole situation is a lie so who is this person and how is he destined to pull this huge scam Emmanuel Modi was also the director of a bank in Nigeria a bank called the Union Bank of Nigeria which is a private Commercial Bank it was not even a state bank and Emanuel was a comfortable man

who had reasonable money and wealth he had Ambitions he wanted more he wanted Millions he started thinking about how he could get such a fortune hence this crazy idea arose in his head the idea of looking for Investments to build an airport in the Nigerian capital although he was a bank manager and had a strong reputation even though this reputation was not sufficient for a great scam like this he needed a stronger and greater reputation so he decided to impersonate the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria his name was Paul Akuma plan must be

prepared strongly and accurately he gathered a team of five people from the people close to him and whom he knew and began with them to discuss the details of the plan to attract one of the banks to invest in the fictitious airport project this group which was formed by Emmanuel Noti were all experienced in financial and banking systems and they were working in the banking sector like Emmanuel so they knew all the details of Banks and how they operate in Nigeria and internationally and they had personal and private information about the most important influential people

in the financial sector in the country and this thing made it easier for them to impersonate the identities of important people the first thing in the plan was that they would send faxes to various commercial banks around the world they prepared a letter written in an official and professional manner on the basis that this letter was sent by a person named touristia William this person was the director of the financial planning and budgeting Department in the Nigerian Ministry of Aviation meaning a very important person but this person did not exist at all important thing in

this letter was that the Nigerian Ministry of Aviation is looking for Investments to build a large airport project in the capital Abuja since Abuja was declared the new capital of Nigeria only four years ago in the year 1991. and this is what made this story or scam more believable because the Nigerian government they were really serious about developing the city and running multiple projects in it since they declared it the new capital of the nation this message was sent to several foreign Banks and each message was slightly changed according to the bank and the country

of destination for example the message that arrived at the Brazilian bank noroeste was addressed to the bank manager this bank manager named Nelson sakaguchi he is of Japanese Roots but he was living and working in Brazil when Nelson sakaguchi read the message it was an official letter coming from the Nigerian Ministry of Aviation and signed by the director of the financial department began to take an interest in the matter because the bank was already looking for investment opportunities in developing foreign countries which boosted The credibility of this letter after it was transmitted from a number

belonging to the Nigerian government indeed Emmanuel and his group thanks to their contacts and strong relations in the financial sector in Nigeria were able to use a fax machine that belongs to the government so that the case would look more believable Saka a director of the Brazilian bank believed the letter and responded to the facts with a message that they were interested in this investment opportunity and wanted to discuss it more here comes the role of Emmanuel he impersonated the governor of the Central Bank and called sakaguchi and they began to talk and delve into

the topic more during this call sakaguchi is almost convinced of this investment and is ready to join them now The Next Step was that they need to set up a meeting sakaguchi asked Emmanuel and said let's meet either in Nigeria or you come to Brazil Emmanuel said no we would like to keep the project confidential now because this project will not start until four or five years from now so we don't want to announce the project before we start executing it how about we meet in a place far from Nigeria and Brazil Saka said I

have a job in London next week what do you think of our meeting there Emmanuel answered with approval and they agreed that they would meet in London after about a week Emmanuel and his team wanted to prepare for this meeting important thing is that each one of them impersonated an important person Emmanuel of course as the governor of the Central Bank a second of them impersonated the Deputy Governor and the third took the position of director in the ministry of Aviation so each one of them took a position since they were five in addition to

the wife of one of them they prepared themselves very well they also prepared a plan for the airport and a site and the land on which they were going to build the airport then they flew to London and stayed in a luxurious five-star hotel and when sakaguchi arrived at the airport they sent him a limousine to welcome him and they booked him the best Suite in the hotel and after that during the meeting they introduced themselves as the characters they played and Saka was believing everything of course at that time there was no internet Google

or search engines meaning Saka was not able to enter the internet and search for the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria's pictures to confirm his identity and on top of this Emmanuel has fake documents that look very real also has pictures with the president of Nigeria and the Prime Minister which makes the LIE look more realistic he narrated the initial airport plans the business plan and the location of the land which was all a lie but during their meeting Emmanuel said we want to keep the project confidential this project will not start construction until

four or five years from now Saka told him we will send the money anytime you all would like to start the project Emmanuel interrupted saying no we cannot wait until the time of construction the money must be in our hands sooner because all that we have is just plans we need to start hiring companies and providing tools and materials so the supply of money must start from now here Saka started to second-guess himself it was clear to Saka that there was something suspicious with Emmanuel who pressured him and said look if you are not comfortable

with this project then there is no problem we had a large number of investors who would like to meet with us to discuss this opportunity but you were the first one to respond to us and you were excited about the idea and also like what I told you before on the phone we would like to reward you with a commission of 10 million dollars for your efforts to complete the deal but if you are not comfortable we can look for other investors he was afraid to lose such an opportunity great investment plus a commission of

10 million dollars Saka told Emmanuel even if I agreed with the case the bank's management probably would not accept it a man will reply to him and told him this issue must be resolved by him and as I told you if your bank is not ready to take this opportunity many others are waiting for it then Saka said no you can count on me we are Partners in the project I will manage things From This Moment Emmanuel knew that sakaguchi had fallen into the Trap and that the 10 million he had promised had motivated him

it would let him do anything to complete this deal Saka believed that he was talking to some important people from Nigeria the agreement that was made between them in London is that the bank will invest in amount of approximately 242 million dollars and we are talking about the year 1995. I mean this money today is worth about 413 million dollars a huge amount and before they finish their meeting in London Emmanuel persuaded sakaguchi to transfer three million dollars as a deposit and proof confirming their desire for this investment opportunity Saka felt the pressure and had

to pay this down payment to not lose it and there he fell into the Trap even if he begins to suspect that the fraud is on him after the first payment he will still pay more to remain hopeful sakaguchi got played psychologically and this is the most important skill for any professional scammer so Emmanuel insists that sakaguchi pays a deposit of 3 million before leaving London he became completely under Emmanuel's Mercy Saka keeps sending Emmanuel Millions constantly over three years from the year 1995 to the year 1998 Saka the idiot didn't tell anyone from the

banks management and even took some effective steps so that no one from the management and the main owners of the bank knew about it the most important step is is that he did not transfer an amount greater than six million dollars in each transfer but why did he change it in this way Saka was responsible for all transfers to foreign countries worth less than six million dollars if he wanted to transfer a larger amount he had to take board approval the Second Step was that these transfers should not be transferred to One account or one

country it needs to be transferred to different countries for example America Britain Switzerland and Hong Kong even the banks to which the transfer was made were different as these transfers were transmitted between a network of different countries and banks no one from the bank management team was paying any attention to where is this money going because following up on the money was supposed to be the bank manager's job as for Emmanuel and his team in Nigeria they used 17 Banks to mix up this money and distribute it in a way that doesn't raise suspicions this

way Saka transferred 242 million dollars to Emmanuel and his crew within three years during this period Emmanuel was sending false documents pictures and contracts to convince him that the work on the airport project was still underway in preparation for the start of the real construction process as I told you Emmanuel and his crew all come from a banking background when they took this money they invested it they bought real estate in Nigeria and also in different regions around the world and they bought shares in several companies the topic remained hidden from everyone and it was

most likely that it would not be revealed for a long time if something unexpected had not happened the thing was that a big Bank named Santander Bank the largest bank in Spain wanted to acquire noro esta bank so they made an offer to noro estebank and the bank's management expressed their initial approval of course an acquisition approach like this is a very huge process and before this procedure takes place it must take a review of all the assets and documents so they can evaluate the value so a board was formed from the two Banks the

Spanish bank and the Brazilian bank so that this board studies all the details that they need to assess the value of the bank to their surprise they found that about a third of noroesty citibank's capital missing which is about hundreds of millions the bank's manager Nelson sakaguchi was summoned by the board of directors to explain to them what happened in the past three years he admitted that he concluded a huge investment deal with the Nigerian government to build an airport in the capital city Abuja and that he transferred the amount of 242 million dollars over

the past three years without the knowledge of the board of directors but the bank did not believe what they were hearing he managed this Bank Faithfully for the past 14 years and then made such a huge decision without even telling them and in a very suspicious way a committee of Investigation was formed after a long effort of tracking the complex Network in which the bank's money was transferred by tracking this money in several countries and several Banks all roads in the end led to Nigeria the problem is that Nigeria does not have real Financial control

the committee was not able to reach the true identity of the people who received the money in Nigeria the issue took a long time until Nigerian Banks were forced by pressure from Western Banks mainly Swiss banks after they investigated the case they stopped several accounts which the money was transferred through they precisely asked Nigerian Banks to cooperate with them in revealing the true identities of the owners of these accounts and Nigerian Banks for fear of blocking their accounts in Swiss banks and other countries they decided to cooperate with them indeed in the end they came

to the identity of a manual and the crew and they faced another problem Nigeria was not a country that had laws against financial fraud Emmanuel and his group remained free in Nigeria and they may have bribed several officials so that they do not care about any Western claims to arrest them or investigate their case the Brazilian bank noroaste sold to the Spanish Santander Bank and the purchase deal was completed but this deal was worth much less than the actual value sakaguchi's trial was held in Switzerland on charges of financial fraud and money laundering and he

was sentenced to prison for several years the owners of the bank were not silent about their right and appointed lawyers in different countries to try to recover some of what they lost from this huge fraud but the problem is that most of the money in property was in Nigeria and the Nigerian government is impossible to cooperate with them and the issue remained like this until Jun obasanjo the new president came to Nigeria this President and his government noticed the escalation of financial fraud cases in Nigeria president decided to form a body called the financial crimes

Commission this body was formed in the year 2003 on the year 2004. the commission opened an investigation into the case of Emmanuel and his gang and against the background of this investigation five of them were arrested but as I told you they were six the six died in a car accident during the investigation period and many even expect that this was not in fact an accident but an assassination and the reason is that Emmanuel had suspicions that this person was intending to speak exposing everything in exchange for a lenient sentence Emmanuel decided to get rid

of him this is all a theory the important thing is that Emmanuel and the remaining four were arrested and their trial began in the city of Abuja during the trial Emmanuel appointed a large number of jurors and the judge of the Court reached the point that in the trial session he warned Emmanuel against trying to bribe officials and members of the jury the judge did not know who took the bribe and who's not so after the judge saw that things had slipped from his hands he decided to stop the case and transfer it to the

city of Legos the largest city in Nigeria even after the trial turned to the city of Lagos Emmanuel kept trying to bribe the officers he tried to reach the head of the financial crimes commission but this bribery attempt did not succeed and attempted bribery charge was added to his indictment but Emmanuel's attempts did not stop in the middle of the trial a warning arrived that there was a bomb in the courtroom and it would explode at any moment so the hall was evacuated quickly and the session was stopped and postponed for several hours until the

Special Forces came and examined the place but they discovered that there wasn't a bomb and the threat was fake in the end Emmanuel did not benefit of this move and it has not been proven that he was the one behind it it was a plan to escape and failed the important thing is that during the trial they tried to negotiate with Emmanuel to return the money he stole in return for giving him a reduced sentence said he was ready to return 10 million dollars they said no we will not accept less than 80 million dollars

Emmanuel came back and said to them I will not return more than 40 million this is all I have the important thing is that the public prosecutor told him look this is your last chance if you don't accept that you return the sum of at least 80 million dollars you will lose the reduced sentence then the court brought an unexpected witness this witness was Nelson sakaguchi former director of the Brazilian neuro estebank and the person who was primarily responsible for the loss of all this money sakaguchi entered the courtroom full of embarrassment when Emmanuel saw

him he knew that he had fallen into trouble and at this case had taken a completely new turn sakaguchi confessed to everything that Emmanuel impersonated the governor of the central bank which is a major crime and he said that they financed him 242 million dollars he showed many pictures documents and messages that were between them and that supported his claims after this testimony the accusation became more proven against him and here Emmanuel tried to return to the previous offer 80 million but the public prosecutor said no now you must return at least 120 million dollars

of the money to their owners and also a fine of more than 10 million dollars that goes to the Nigerian government and because Emmanuel had no other option he agreed and in return for this deal he was sentenced to five years but he didn't spend these five years he stayed in prison for less than two years and he put cases on the government claiming they took more property from him than the agreement which is 120 million dollars he was able to win these cases and recover about 50 million dollars in properties all of this was

through bribes that could have reached millions of dollars after these events Emmanuel nodi remained free for many years he continued to live a life of prosperity and without problems but he was arrested again in the year 2016 but this time it was not a scam case but it was a murder case it seems that he was in a dispute over lands in one of his regions and Emmanuel sent about 200 of his followers to attack these lands and their owners and battle them this led to the death of a guard and some serious injuries to

several policemen consequently Emmanuel was arrested in the year 2016 on charges of conspiracy to commit murder but if we know something from his history I don't think he would take a long sentence and it is most likely that he is now living his life comfortably in his luxury and extravagance palaces among his men and here we reached the end of our story do not forget to like And subscribe to the channel and activate the Bell button make sure you take a look at other stories in the channel thank you for watching I will see you

in the next video