Police catch Nigerian scammer who targeted El Paso County women

Two women in El Paso County were conned out of more than $78,000, but the suspect behind the Nigerian romance scam was arrested Friday morning in Georgia.

The El Paso County Sheriff’s Office began investigating after the victims were targeted between April 2017 and Feb. 2018.

Kelly Itive came to the U.S. from Nigeria on a student visa in early 2017 and “immediately started his scam,” according to a news release by the sheriff’s office. Itive, 26, would meet his victims by posing as a middle-aged white man with an engineering background and then contacting women on social media.

Investigators say Itive convinced two women to send him close to $80,000 and used fraudulent bank sites to make them believe he’d pay them back. The sheriff’s office confirmed that he was sending money back to Nigeria.

Friday morning, the Cobb County, Georgia, Police Department arrested Itive with the coordination of the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office.

Itive will be extradited back to Colorado on charges of theft and criminal impersonation.