A man sold a nonexistent airport to a bank for $242 million.

Not a single brick was laid, and all he needed was a fake ID and a phone call.
In the 1990s, Emmanuel Nwod pretended to be the governor of the Nigerian Central Bank and convinced a manager at the Noroeste Bank in Brazil to transfer $191M in cash to fund a new airport in Abuja.
He forged government documents, created fake companies, and had accomplices pose as senior officials.
They met with the banker in London, sold him the dream, and promised a 10% commission on the deal.
For three years, no one paid attention.
The scandal was uncovered when Santander Bank ( a Spanish bank ) attempted to acquire Noroeste Bank and discovered that 40% of its entire capital had vanished.
$242M vanished. They tracked everything back to Nigeria. Not to any government office, but to Emmanuel Nwod.
Noroeste Bank’s owners desperately tried to cover $242M the gap with their own pockets to save the deal.
But it wasn’t enough. The damage was already too great, and by 2001, Noroeste Bank had collapsed.
One con man in Lagos single-handedly brought down a major Brazilian bank.
Nwod received a 25-year sentence. He served two years. Then he filed a lawsuit to recover his seized assets and legally reclaimed them worth $52M
.
What’s even crazier is that last week he returned to court again.
He was sentenced to one year for forging documents on property he ordered seized for his victims.
After 30 years, he’s still playing the system #GateOfficiallyIntegratesPolymarket #PreciousMetalsLeadGains $BTC ‌$GT ‌$ETH ‌#IsraelStrikesIranBTCPlunges #CryptoMarketClimbs #USIranClashOverCeasefireTalks