Nigerian Prince Email Scammer Arrested In Louisiana, Police Say

SLIDELL, LA — The infamous “Nigerian prince” accused of scamming people out of millions of dollars has been arrested — more than 6,500 miles away from the African country in Slidell, Louisiana. And, no, police say, he’s not a prince — the scam behind the scam, as it were.

Michael Neu, 67, was arrested by Slidell financial crimes investigators and charged with 269 counts of wire fraud and money laundering following an 18-month investigation, police said Thursday in a news release.

Neu is accused of being a “middle man” in the scams, in which a “Nigerian prince” claimed potential victims had been named a beneficiary in a will and stood to inherit an estate worth $1 million or more. Those targeted were asked to provide personal financial information to prove their identity and speed the transfer of the property.

For most people, the idea is laughable, but others do fall for it and have lost millions of dollars in such schemes, police said.

Police said Neu “participated in hundreds of financial transactions, involving phone and internet scams, designed to con money from victims across the United States.”

Some of the money obtained by Neu was subsequently wired to co-conspirators in Nigeria, complicating an ongoing investigation, police said.

Slidell Police Chief Randy Fandal said the investigation and arrest should serve as a reminder to people to be leery of scams.

“If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is,” he said. “Never give out personal information over the phone, through email, cash checks for other individuals, or wire large amounts of money to someone you don’t know — 99.9 percent of the time, it’s a scam.

“This scam, along with others, are becoming a common practice all across the United States. If someone calls you claiming to be an official of a government agency, your local utility company, a law enforcement official, or anything similar, ask for a callback number and verify the person is legitimate,” Fandal said.