Posted by By JULIANA FRANCIS on
The quest for revenge and quick money, has landed four young men in trouble.
The quest for revenge and quick money, has landed four young men in trouble.
They allegedly produced fake identity cards of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to extort money from an expatriate.
The victim was said to be the Managing Director of Mikano-International Company Acme road, Ogba, Ikeja, Lagos.
The names of the suspects were given as Oluwatosin Aderehinwo, a chartered accountant, Oluwafemi Philip, his cousin and a lawyer.
Augustine Omokayode, a psychologist and Bello Itopa, who drove them to the company premises in Aderehinwo's BMW, car marked HB 59 KJA.
Aderehinwo told Daily Sun that he embarked on a revenge mission because of the way he was sacked for a crime he didn't commit. Mikano had alleged that Aderehinwo had embezzled close to N1.1million. But Aderehinwo denied it, saying he only overpaid some staff.
Aderehinwo claimed that he sneaked out some documents proving that the Lebanese managing director had been evading taxes, and had neither working permit nor paying expatriate fee.
He decided to use the EFCC identity cards to make the foreigner part with some money. The operatives he used were his cousin and friends, all armed with the fake identity cards, prepared by the versatile Aderehinwo.
He said: 'I have no regret for what I did. I used my camera phone to take a snapshot of the logo of EFCC from one of their signboards. I downloaded it into my computer and produced the fake identity cards. It took me just a day."
He told his friends to go to the company, while he stayed at home and out of sight of his former colleagues.
Philip said: 'When we got to Mikano, we told them that we were EFCC men from Abuja. We told them we wanted to see the managing director but they said he was not around. We left. There was no plan to come back. It was when my cousin, Aderehinwo came to report to the monitoring unit in Ikeja, that Mikano was threatening his life through phone calls that they arrested him."
Immediately the men left the company, the security men, suspected them and invited the police and took the registration number of the BMW car.
Detectives at Ikeja commenced investigations and visited the licence office. There, they uncovered the name of the owner. Through him, they got Oluwatosin Aderehinwo. Detectives later discovered that Aderehinwo was also an ex-staffer of Mikano. Aderehinwo was said to have been arrested when he came to the police to lodge a counter complaint. He was used to smoke out his friends but Gogo, Tunde and other members of the gang are still at large.
The identity cards, which bore fake names, have also been recovered. Aderehinwo had told police that Mikano had been trailing him with hired assassins. Omokayode said he agreed to the plan because he needed money to start a business. He said: 'I finished my NYSC almost three years ago, but I have not got a job. I have searched and searched, I have responsibilities and younger ones.
Philip, a practising lawyer, attached to a chamber at Ikeja, said he accepted because he was greedy and also because he overheard Mikano several times, making threat calls to his cousin.
Itopa said he was just a mechanic to Aderehinwo and didn't know what he was walking into. He said: 'Aderehinwo brought his car that day to my workshop. It was having problem of injector. After I repaired it, he said I should drive these men to Mikano.
He gave me one of these identity cards."
When Daily Sun visited Mikano to find out about the tax evasion allegation and the real reason Aderehinwo was sacked, the security men said the spokesman of the company was not around. He, however, promised the company would call Daily Sun. But as at press time, no call had come.