67 yrs old American man arrested for posing as Nigerian prince to scam people (Details, pics)

A 67-year-old American man from Slidell, Michael Neu, has been arrested by Slidell Police for posing as a Nigerian prince to scam a lot of people out of thousands of dollars.

The scam involved an email from someone claiming to be Nigerian royalty who tell the recipient that they are the beneficiary in a will to inherit an estate worth a million or more.

Slidell Police financial crimes investigators arrested Neu for 269 counts of wire fraud and money laundering.

The email solicits the recipient's personal financial information to prove they are beneficiary and to speed the transfer of funds.

Neu is suspected to be a middle man who participated in hundreds of financial transactions that conned money from victims across the United States.

A spokesperson for the Slidell Police Department said: “Most people laugh at the thought of falling for such a fraud, but law enforcement officials report annual losses of millions of dollars to these schemes."

Some of the money obtained by Neu were believed to be wired to co-conspirators in Nigeria.