> As opposed to the infamous Nigerian email scams where people pretended to be heirs to fortunes and devised various ways to get victims to send them money to access their funds, the scam run by Eke and three other Nigerian conspirators was significantly more sophisticated

The words "Nigerian scammer" is used here for it's literal meaning i. e., the scammer is a Nigerian citizen. It is NOT an instance of the scam known as "Nigerian 419 scam".