Jyoti Matharoo and Kiran Matharoo are known as the ‘Canadian Kardashians’.
Indo-Canadian sisters Jyoti Matharoo and Kiran Matharoo, both from Toronto, and living in Lagos, were apprehended by security officials after trying to extort money from a Nigerian billionaire.
The Matharoo sisters were popular on Instagram because they are shaped similarly to Kim Kardashian, whom many Nigerians greatly admire, reported The Daily Beast. And like Kim, they can credit a sex tape with elevating their fame. But these two sisters living in Nigeria’s commercial capital of Lagos allegedly used their sex tapes with the country’s elite for blackmail.
According to reports in Nigeria, officials accused both sisters of threatening oil magnate Femi Otedola, asking the 54-year-old tycoon to hand over money or else they would post a video of him cheating on his wife to a sex-scandal website that they created.
Otedula is one of Nigeria’s richest men, worth a reported $1.8 billion. The Matharoo sisters reportedly used their website to blackmail wealthy people with accusations of “cheating and patronizing prostitutes.”
According to Politics Nigeria, “it was also discovered that the girls recorded conversations and sex romps with their rich clients which comprise of politicians, club owners and businessmen.
“After the acts, they approach their victims through a third party, threatening them to pay thousands of dollars or risk the release of the recordings/pictures/videos online through their website Naijagistlive.”
The Sun reported the sisters were allegedly caught with laptops and iPads that contained video of themselves having sex with rich and powerful men. They were alleged to have launched the site NaijaGistLive to extort cash from well-heeled men including politicians, club owners and businessmen.
But luck ran out on them when they targeted Otedola, reported The Daily Beast.
The soft-spoken businessman hired investigators to probe the sisters’ background after they threatened to post his sex tape, and then filed a complaint to authorities against them.
The police traced the girls through one Babatunde Oyebode, who is in charge of upgrading the website to prevent it from being shot down by hackers, according to one report, which said Oyebode was picked up by the Police Special Fraud Unit (SFU) during a “third attempt to extort a businessman in Lagos.”
After shaking down their target for thousands of dollars, Oyebode continued to demand more money, threatening that he had more to reveal. His victim played along. And when Oyebode tried to withdraw cash paid into his Nigerian account, he was picked up by the police.
Email correspondence between him and a woman, presumably one of the Toronto sisters, revealed that Paypal was one medium the syndicate used to receive the cash they’d demand.
They both had conversations about victims that had paid and those that had not, and the amount to be paid for any story to be removed from the website. Huge sums of money were paid by victims to take down embarrassing contents.
According to court documents posted on Politics Nigeria, the girls “have been responsible for the humiliation and cyber-bullying of some 274 persons, mostly based in regions of Africa.”
The sisters pleaded not guilty to all charges when they were arraigned in Yaba Magistrate Court in Lagos Friday. Both will remain in prison until their next appearance on January 27.
The two had previously signed a confessional statement on Dec. 20, admitting to a number of the claims being made against them by Otedola, apologizing to the mogul and agreeing to leave the country after their trial.
The women have a combined Instagram following of more than 50,000, post glamorous shots of themselves on yachts drinking champagne and lounging in bikinis, reported The Sun.
“Consular services are being provided to the Canadian citizens who have been detained in Lagos, Nigeria,” Kristine Racicot of Global Affairs Canada, told the Toronto Star.