A fraud fugitive has been caught after making friends with a former justice department official on Facebook.
Maxi Sopo, a fugitive from the US was caught in Cancun, Mexico after unwittingly adding a former justice department official to his Facebook friend’s list.
The two had met a few times in Cancun’s nightclubs and the official had no idea Mr Sopo was a wanted man.
Mr Sopo, 26, arrived in the US from Cameroon in 2003. He had been selling roses in Seattle nightclubs before embarking on a series of bank scams with an associate which earned them $200,000.
After learning he was under investigation by federal agents, Sopo escaped to Cancun and was enjoying it so much he shared his excitement on Facebook. in his last few status updates he commented that he was “loving it”, “living in paradise” and “just here to have fun”.
Michael Scoville, the assistant US attorney who helped track the fugitive, said "He was making posts about how beautiful life is and how he was having a good time with his buddies.
"He was definitely not living the way we wanted him to be living, given the charges he was facing."
After discovering his criminal past, the official handed Mr Sopo’s location over to the authorities who arrested him. He is now in custody in Mexico City awaiting extradition to the US where he could be facing up to 30 years in prison.
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Comments
Facebook can be a dangerous site with some people being on it for the wrong reasons. Social Networking can cause conflict but in this case it is good because it is helping us to catch criminals who deserve to be punished for their actions.
10-11-09
What would we do without social networking sites in modern society? I'm sure there are numerous cases where Facebook/Twitter etc have been used for reasons other then socialising. Just shows you..
10-11-09
For a social network like this, in theory they should only be adding friends who are actully friends nto some random people they have just met for a few minutes, but there is one obvious reason as to why people do this, to make them seem popular maybe? well this is the result for the social networks, to socialise. Get connected to the outside world! ... but who's out there?
07-11-09
This article shows how far we've come with social networking sites e.g facebook. If it wasn't for facebook it would have taken longer to catch this criminal
05-11-09
:O Maybe Facebook Isnt Safe After All
04-11-09
fugitive should of been more careful on who he added on facebook
30-10-09
Any comments?