Dating site fraud: Rhyl barber jailed for £90,000 con

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Esosa EromoseleImage source, North Wales Police
Image caption,

Esosa Eromosele was described in court as one of the "leading players" in the deception

A conman barber has been jailed for 18 months after conning a woman out of £90,000 through a dating website.

Esosa Eromosele, 49, who lived in Rhyl in north Wales, admitted money-laundering for fraudsters.

Mold Crown Court heard the father-of-three was "one of the leading players" in defrauding the woman.

He also paid £1,000 to use the bank account of "inadequate alcoholic" Carwyn Jones, 29, from nearby Abergele, to gain £25,000.

Jones received a four-month suspended jail term with rehabilitation and alcohol abstinence.

Prosecuting barrister John Philpotts told the court he met a Norwegian woman on a dating website and persuaded her to set up a property business with him.

The woman then complied with a request for £90,000, much of which vanished to Nigeria, the county of Eromosele's birth.

Another of Eromosele's victims was a woman who was asked to pay £1,500 for a carpet, when a business email was compromised, the court heard.

'Sophisticated'

"You have no insight into the misery you cause and your explanations are fanciful," Judge Niclas Parry told Eromosele.

"You were conning well-meaning and trusting people. What was serious was that bank details were hacked.

"People were paying money into accounts they had every reason to believe, and did belong to genuine people, but they had been intercepted. This was sophisticated."