JOHANNESBURG, Sept 11 (Reuters) – South Africa will extradite to the United States six Nigerian nationals suspected of being members of the Black Axe organised crime network involved in romance scams and cyberfraud, police said on Friday.
The men are wanted by U.S. authorities on charges including wire fraud and money laundering.
They allegedly targeted more than 100 women in the U.S., defrauding them of more than 100 million rand ($6.2 million) through online romance scams, South Africa’s elite Hawks police unit said in a statement, adding the victims included pensioners and businesspeople.
Black Axe grew out of a student fraternity in the late 1970s called the Neo Black Movement of Africa, and it has since evolved into a structured, violent criminal organisation often dealing in financial cybercrime.
The six men were arrested in South Africa in 2021.
They will be handed over to officials from the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Secret Service on Friday afternoon at Cape Town International Airport, the Hawks said.
The extradition comes after other suspected Black Axe members were arrested in Switzerland and Spain earlier this year. ($1 = 16.1633 rand)
(Reporting by Sfundo Parakozov; Editing by Alex RichardsonEditing by Alexander Winning)
