The big sting II

Just when you thought you'd seen the worst of those Nigerian money scams, something like this comes along.

A con job so brazen and so low, it takes your breath away.

This time, it's not run from some dingy office in Africa, it starts right here with a local villain. A notorious international conman, a liar and a cheat, who'll take anything that's not nailed down.

He's preying on the poor and the vulnerable.

But you'll be pleased to hear, greed got the better of him, it was more than enough to lure him into Liam Bartlett's trap.

Transcript

LIAM BARTLETT: We're spying on one of the most brazen con men this country has seen. Kawana Morehu has been preying on hundreds of weak and vulnerable people across Australia and New Zealand for 20 years. As we listen in, this master of the con tries to lure in his latest target. He's working in cahoots with Nigeria's notorious scam syndicates. But the game is up. Morning.

KAWANA MOREHU: Morning.

LIAM BARTLETT: Hello. Reverend Morehu, is it?

KAWANA MOREHU: Yeah, yeah.

LIAM BARTLETT: 60 Minutes, Australia.

KAWANA MOREHU: Oh, very nice to meet you, sir.

LIAM BARTLETT: How long have you been in league with these Nigerian scammers?

KAWANA MOREHU: Oh, I would say the past 15, 20 years.

LIAM BARTLETT: You've taken a lot of money from people, from innocent people.

KAWANA MOREHU: Well, I wouldn't say that. People invest and my investors are still with me.

LIAM BARTLETT: Well that's certainly not what these so-called investors told us.

OLIVE PELESU: He's a con man. He has to be stopped.

SYLVIA ABEL: He's scammed so many people right up and down the coast of Australia.

LIAM BARTLETT: This shiester has been around a long time. Since the 1980s, Kawana Morehu has been involved in countless scams posing as a devout Christian pastor. At one stage, he tried to buy an American amusement park for $200 million. He even tried to sell a Da Vinci painting he didn't own.

JANA WENDT: Are you telling the truth?

KAWANA MOREHU: Yeah, I'm telling the truth, but I'm a man who doesn't let the left hand know what the right hand is doing.

LIAM BARTLETT: Over the last two years, Kawana Morehu has teamed up with the Nigerian crime syndicates, targeting dozens of Australians. His latest victim, Brisbane businessman Rob Orchard.

ROB ORCHARD: Up on the hill over there, that's where we were going to build the Polynesian village.

LIAM BARTLETT: And he took advantage of the dream?

ROB ORCHARD: Well, he said that he could get the $100 million for me and all it's gonna cost me is about $180,000.

LIAM BARTLETT: Morehu introduced Rob to some shady Nigerians, masquerading as his business partners. But just before he handed over $30,000 in cash, Rob discovered who he was really dealing with.

ROB ORCHARD: What I've seen over the past few months, he doesn't care what people believe. All he wants to believe is just getting their money. If they gave me a badge, I'd have him locked up, handcuffed, locked up and throw the key away.

LIAM BARTLETT: As we showed in our first report, these scams are a multibillion-dollar business and it's here, in Nigeria's Lagos, where it all begins. Thousands of scammers in Internet cafès send out e-mails and faxes every day, promising to make their victims rich. But there's always a catch. First, they have to pay up-front fees — money they'll never see again. Hello, my friend. 60 Minutes. And you're busted. With the Nigerian fraud police, we busted some of the scammers who targeted Australians. Australians like retired Queensland businessman Graham Schoenfisch.

GRAHAM SCHOENFISCH: I was blackmailed, I was conned, I was a victim of extortion.

LIAM BARTLETT: Okay.

GRAHAM SCHOENFISCH: I'm sorry — can we stop for a while?

LIAM BARTLETT: Graham lost $500,000, his home, and his business, to the Nigerian con men. And who are you impersonating tonight sir?

NIGERIAN CON MAN: Who are this?

LIAM BARTLETT: You're the accountant-general, no less, of Nigeria are you?

NIGERIAN CON MAN: No.

LIAM BARTLETT: But he got his revenge.

NIGERIAN CON MAN: Hello Mr Graham. Yes. This is Mr Moses.

GRAHAM SCHOENFISCH: Yeah, I know you mate, I know your name. Yes. You blooming fraudster.

NIGERIAN CON MAN: I'm very sorry for this. I don't. I'm very sorry for this. I don't, I don't.

GRAHAM SCHOENFISCH: You've sent me to ban

LIAM BARTLETT: Yet, for every scammer arrested here, there are hundreds more moving offshore, often joining forces with crooks overseas. Nigerian fraud police boss, Ibrahim Lamorde, is frustrated by the lack of action by police in other countries.

IBRAHIM LAMORDE: People think it is a Nigerian problem, that we should deal with it.

LIAM BARTLETT: So other countries just aren't doing enough?

IBRAHIM LAMORDE: They are not, they are not. Unfortunately. Unfortunately they are not.

LIAM BARTLETT: So, once again, we're on the trail of the scammers. Here, in Brisbane, Rob Orchard wants to catch the Nigerians' front man, Kawana Morehu. He's obtained damning evidence — a whole suitcase full of Morehu's private papers, papers that reveal years of complex scams he's hatched with the Nigerians. From those private papers, how many people do you think he's scammed?

ROB ORCHARD: Over a thousand.

LIAM BARTLETT: Gee, that's a lot of money.

ROB ORCHARD: That's a lot of money he's made, that's why I said, you work it out how much he's scammed.

LIAM BARTLETT: And these are some of those victims — Brisbane churchgoers fleeced of their money in grand investment schemes.

SYLVIA ABEL: The place that he targets the most is churches. Comes in amongst the churches to con the people, the innocent people, people that are sick, people that haven't got the money.

LIAM BARTLETT: Because they're easy targets?

SYLVIA ABEL: Yes, mmmm.

OLIVE PELESU: To be a pastor, you know, that's what got me, you know? That's what got me to believe because of his status as a pastor.

TINA CAPPS: It's the little people that he preys on and he has to be stopped. He has to be stopped.

LIAM BARTLETT: For the past two years, self-styled reverend Kawana Morehu has been cutting a swathe through Victoria, NSW, and Queensland, targeting vulnerable people through church groups. The Australian police have let him slip away but we've chased him here, to Auckland, New Zealand, where he continues to lure many more into the Nigerian trap. With Rob Orchard's help, we've cornered Kawana Morehu at this Auckland hotel.

ROB ORCHARD: So, long have you been doing this?

KAWANA MOREHU: Hey?

ROB ORCHARD: How long have you been trying to get money out of Nigeria?

KAWANA MOREHU: I've had four payments. I've had four payments, eh? They wasn't very big ones. $1.6B all up.

ROB ORCHARD: $1.6B?

KAWANA MOREHU: That's what the government owed me.

LIAM BARTLETT: And that's where we come in. Mr Morehu, we have seen all the documents in your briefcase.

KAWANA MOREHU: Well, that's only some of them, that's not official, hey?

LIAM BARTLETT: That's only some of them.

KAWANA MOREHU: And you're breaking the privacy act.

LIAM BARTLETT: Well, that's interesting because there are hundreds — there are hundreds of names in this briefcase and you know there are. Hundreds of names of people that you've taken money from in Australia.

KAWANA MOREHU: Don't you think we want to pay them back?

LIAM BARTLETT: You've stolen $55,000 from David Witana, he lost his trucking business. You've stolen $260,000 from Brett Campbell.

KAWANA MOREHU: Hold on, hold on, hold on.

LIAM BARTLETT: That's how you take money from innocent people, like Sylvia Abel, $3000, Janice McDonnell, Tina and Graham Capps, $30,000, plus staying with them for six months.

KAWANA MOREHU: Hey, hold on.

LIAM BARTLETT: Olive Pelesu, who takes in street children, and you take $300 from a person like that. You're a disgrace.

KAWANA MOREHU: Hey, they're my friends, right, they're my friends.

LIAM BARTLETT: Mr Morehu, we've spoken to them. They are far from being your friends.

KAWANA MOREHU: Yeah, but you just get your point of view and your story, that's all you're interested.

LIAM BARTLETT: They're not your friends.

KAWANA MOREHU: That's what 60 Minutes is all about.

LIAM BARTLETT: These people want you in gaol. But the sad truth is that Kawana Morehu won't be going to gaol any time soon. What about all those religious people you've stolen money from?

KAWANA MOREHU: Don't worry about it.

LIAM BARTLETT: Australian police, like Brisbane Fraud Squad head Brian Hay, say they just don't have the jurisdiction or the resources to pursue these international con men. Are law enforcement agencies paying due attention to it?

INSP BRIAN HAY: Look, I think we will now. We had a problem that we didn't know was there. We had no idea of the extent of the problem.

LIAM BARTLETT: How widespread do you think these Nigerian scams are?

INSP BRIAN HAY: Nigerian scams are global, there's no doubt about that. They have global reach, we know of money being transferred to all the parts of the world and the effects are enormous.

LIAM BARTLETT: The Nigerian syndicates are indeed springing up all over the world, as we discovered during months of undercover investigations. Australians are now being targeted by scammers based in Hong Kong, Madrid, even London. With our producer posing as an Australian retiree, we caught this scammer in a London hotel room — a Nigerian claiming to be a British Government official. And they kept on coming. We've got these guys on toast. It's time to ring Scotland Yard. But, again, police say they're powerless to act. We'd given them six weeks' warning of our sting, But they refuse to come. Okay, let me get this straight. The Scotland Yard fraud squad per se is not interested.

SCOTLAND YARD: There would be no point in arresting this man without, on, on our, because he hasn't committed an offence here, it's over in Australia.

LIAM BARTLETT: I bet you're very pleased that Scotland Yard don't want to have anything to do with you? You're very lucky. Very lucky man. Try not to con any more Australians! When we alerted Scotland Yard to a scam taking place in a London hotel, they didn't want to know about it.

INSP BRIAN HAY: That's why I think the Nigerian-based frauds have been able to proliferate so well and they've been able to scam so many people and make so much money. How do you investigate a crime where you've got an offender in another country. Now we've gone and had a good look and we've got a massive problem and we're going to address that.

LIAM BARTLETT: Back in Australia, the victims are counting their losses. With little hope of bringing the con men to justice, they've lost faith in the law.

TINA CAPPS: Well, I thought they would have got him by now, a long time ago actually, right from the very beginning when he first started out. Why is he still free, out there, doing what he's still doing? Why is he still out there?

LIAM BARTLETT: As for the Nigerians' local connection, Kawana Morehu, he's still operating without fear of the Lord, or the law.

KAWANA MOREHU: Hey brother, you can put us Maoris down but you can't put me down. I've got my Maori people out there, my Maori paramount chiefs. I've got the Maori party out there. They'll stand behind me. They know me.

LIAM BARTLETT: You're pulling out the race card as well? So you start on religion, then you go to race.

KAWANA MOREHU: I want to fight you, I want to fight you, you see. You think you're good. Gonna take more than 60 Minutes and 'Fair Go' to try and move me!