Lagos — The Nigeria Police Force, through its Airport Police Command, has arrested a suspected international romance and celebrity fraudster allegedly involved in scams exceeding N1 billion, targeting victims in the United States.
The arrest was disclosed in a press statement issued on Tuesday by the Police Public Relations Officer of the Airport Police Command, ASP Mohammed Adeola.
According to the statement, the suspect, Essien Emmanuel Akpama, 20, was arrested on Jan. 5, 2026, by operatives of the Anti-Fraud Unit of the command while attempting to board a flight out of Lagos State.
The police said the arrest followed months of intensive, intelligence-led surveillance and monitoring based on credible information, as part of sustained efforts to combat transnational crimes and prevent the use of Nigerian airports as escape routes for criminal elements.
Preliminary investigations, the statement noted, revealed that Akpama, who previously resided in Calabar, Cross River State, relocated to Lagos on Feb. 23, 2024, from where he allegedly coordinated and executed several fraudulent schemes.
In one instance in 2024, the suspect allegedly defrauded a 47-year-old female victim in the United States of one million dollars through a celebrity romance scam, under the guise of purchasing property in Florida for an orphanage. The funds were reportedly solicited via a cryptocurrency scheme identified as “BullRun 2.0,” formerly known as “4 Way Mirror Money.”
The statement further disclosed that the suspect also allegedly defrauded another 70-year-old female victim in the United States of N25.7 million, equivalent to about $18,000, through the purchase of gift cards, high-end mobile phones and computer equipment, which were shipped to Nigeria at his direction.
Items recovered in connection with the case include a 14-inch MacBook Pro, an iPhone 17 Pro Max, two Google Pixel 10 Pro XL devices and one Google Pixel 10 Pro, with a total estimated value of N8.14 million.
Police said investigations revealed that the suspect posed as a 60-year-old orthopedic surgeon working with the United Nations in Nigeria, claiming the devices were required to maintain secure communication with the victim.
Reacting to the development, the Commissioner of Police, Airport Police Command, CP Ogunbode Olufunke, reaffirmed the command’s resolve to prevent criminal elements from exploiting airport corridors to evade justice, stressing that intelligence-driven operations would continue to be deployed to detect, disrupt and dismantle criminal networks operating within Nigeria’s aviation ecosystem.
The statement added that the case has been transferred to the Nigeria Police Force Special Fraud Unit for further investigation, after which the suspect will be arraigned in court.
