A man from Canada has confessed that he is the latest victim of a 419 Nigerian scam.
Believing that an email from a lawyer with a client named David Rempel, who 'died' in the London bombings in 2005, was legitimate, John Rempel set out to obtain part of the £12.8 million the deceased had supposedly left behind.
Although he wasn't related to the dead person the lawyer was supposedly working for, he believed the scam to be real and set out to pay transfer fees so the money could be put into his account.
In my heart this was true
What started off as an initial $2,500 to transfer money into an account, spiraled out of control when the 'lawyer' demanded thousands of dollars for documents, the opening of bank accounts and around $25,000 tax on the 'inheritance' John Rempel was to receive.
He even visited London, meeting the lawyer/liar and handed over $10,000 in cash.
This all culminated in John Rempel racking up massive credit card debts and borrowing copious amounts of cash from relatives to see the money misadventure through. In then end he spent a total of $150,000 (circa £100,000).
Speaking to The Windsor Starnewspaper about the incident, John Rempel admitted: "I really thought in my heart this was true."
Not the first time
This isn't the first time that a person has lost mountains of money through a Nigerian 419 scam. In 2008, a woman called Janella Spears spanked $400,000 chasing a suitcase full of money, which had just as much chance of turning up as the luggage processed through Heathrow's Terminal 5.
UPDATE
Thanks for the below posts. David Rempel is in fact from Leamington, Ontario in Canada and not Leamington, Utah in the US, as was reported. The story has now been amended.
