A South Korean steel company are the unfortunate victims of a scam artist, who duped them out of $375,000 by claiming he was a representative for singer and super-producer Pharrell Williams and was looking to book a performance for the entertainer in Seoul.
As the Associated Press reports, Sigismond Segbefia, a Ghanian native who currently resides in Silver Spring, Maryland, had been using a front company, Eastern Stars LLC, which he incorporated in 2013, to scam people out of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Segbefia is currently facing multiple charges, including wire fraud, bank fraud, and identity theft, after he was arrested by federal customs officials at Kennedy Airport in New York last week. He was released on bond and will appear before a federal magistrate on 14th May in Pittsburgh.
The con artist reached out to South Korean steelmaker Dosko Co Ltd, claiming he worked with a Japanese talent agency that could help the company book a concert by Williams. The company, which has been looking to expand into entertainment, wired $375,000 to Eastern Stars in August.
The Japanese company was “provided with a contract and invoice in the name of Eastern Stars LLC”, which claimed to be Williams’ “legal representative”, the FBI said. Segbefia even provided “fake documents, emails addresses, and the names of Williams’ real management team”.
The next day, Segbefia withdrew more than $113,000 from an Eastern Stars bank account, but the bank froze the rest once Dosko’s suspicions were raised. The company then attempted to recall the $375,000 wire transfer, the complaint said.
Sungdae Cho, president of Dosko, confirmed that the company has been duped and expressed relief that the suspect had been caught. He said that the planned concert would’ve been the company’s first entertainment project and was spearheaded by his son, David Cho.
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According to David Cho, he was introduced to a representative of Segbefia’s company back in September through a Japanese talent agency during a meeting in Tokyo. The talent agency was reportedly hoping to set up a Williams concert in Japan after his SK performance.
A few weeks later, the Japanese talent agency called Cho claiming that Williams’ side needed a sum of “guarantee” money wired immediately to confirm his schedule in South Korea. Cho said he wired the money, but at around 3 or 4am Korea time, the Japanese agency called him and told him they had been duped.
It’s the most notable charge on Segbefia’s rather lengthy rap sheet. The con man is also accused of stealing the identity of a western Pennsylvania postal worker and using it to bilk more than $445,000 from women he met on dating sites.
Meanwhile, the real Pharrell has experienced his own share of legal problems lately. Last month, a jury decided that the singer and former collaborator Robin Thicke must pay the family of late soul singer Marvin Gaye $7.3 million after they found that their 2013 hit ‘Blurred Lines’ copied Gaye’s 1977 single ‘Got To Give It Up’.
