Thirty-one-years-old
Osmond Eweka, a prince from Benin who pretended to run two consulting firms in
Manhattan telling clients that if they paid a fee they would be placed at
various jobs across New York City, has been arrested for defrauding hundreds of
job seekers out of thousands of dollars by promising them high-paying gigs in
New York.
The Benin
Prince from the Royal Family of Ogiesoba Eweka of the Great Benin Kingdom, was
arrested alongside his friend, Kamel McKay, 27, and according to Prosecutors,
some of the jobs Eweka and McKay promised their victims were for hotel
housekeeping and front desk receptionists.
The men used
a popular job-seeking website Indeed.com to find their victims. Eweka who
appeared in a Manhattan court on Thursday where he pleaded guilty to charges of
larceny and scheme to defraud, would invite their victims to their office for
an interview and then have them pay a fee, ranging between $300 and $700, the
Post reports.
Prosecutor
Catherine McCaw said the fee was supposed to cover the cost of uniforms,
training and background checks.
“But in
reality, there was no such job,” McCaw said at Eweka’s arraignment Thursday in
Manhattan Supreme Court. McKay, 27, was arrested last May.
After
interviewing the victims and collecting their fee, the alleged fraudsters would
send them to work sites, where they were turned away by employers who weren’t
expecting them. The confused job seekers were then unable to get in touch with
Eweka, McKay or their bogus employment agencies.
The duo
pocketed at least $54,000 in fees and didn’t provide a single job, according to
prosecutors. Eweka, who married an attorney in 2016 in an elaborate wedding
ceremony in Nigeria, allegedly operated the scam out of an Empire State
Building office under the alias Sean Jackson. McKay, using the name Tyrone
Hayes, met his marks at a rented office at 48 Wall Street.
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