Nigeria- A Nigerian conman successfully blackmailed Muslim state governors by threatening to release mocked-up computer images of them cavorting with prostitutes. Sadiq Dalhatu, head of the State Security Service in the northern city of Kano, told reporters that 35-year-old Musa Baffa Bashir had warned leaders he had been paid by their opponents to create fake nude pictures of them. He targeted seven governors from Nigeria’s conservative north who had backed the reintroduction of Islamic law – which prescribes the death penalty for adultery – and would have been highly embarrassed if the snaps became public. Four of the seven had already paid Bashir 500,000 naira ($NZ5,500) each before Governor Adamu Aliero of Kebbi State tipped off security agents, who set up a sting to capture him, Dalhatu said. “We were briefed and the governor played along by asking the suspect to name a place where someone would meet him with 500,000 naira,” Dalhatu said, at a news conference where the suspect was paraded before journalists. “He named a hotel in Kano where our men went under the guise of giving him the money and arrested him,” he added. Bashir said he has resorted to blackmail after his business failed, but would not say what this business had been. “I couldn’t pay my rent and I was unable to feed my family. I took advantage of my earlier contacts with the governors and concocted these lies to make ends meet,” he said.

Nigeria – the spiritual home of the email and fax “advanced fee fraud” – has acquired a worldwide reputation as a fertile seed-bed for a variety of elaborate brands of fraud and extortion.