Posted by By Juliana Francis on
A 65-year-old man was among one of the suspects in the net of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) for defrauding the managing director and chief executive of Nasarawa Investment and Property Development Company Limited.
A 65-year-old man was among one of the suspects in the net of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) for defrauding the managing director and chief executive of Nasarawa Investment and Property Development Company Limited.
The victim, Idris Bori, after myriad of gimmicks to convince him of the authenticity of the fraudsters' claims, was eventually swindled N4, 39,900.00. This excluded 35 MTN recharge cards fraudulently collected from him.
He had fallen for the offers made to him by the duo of Engineer Femi Olawole, 50, and Chief Adelagu David, 65.
The fraudsters, however, denied duping Bori. According to them, he was simply paying for services they rendered to him. They claimed to have met the victim, suffering from paralysis, which affected his private parts and volunteered to procure herbal treatment for him. They claimed that after noticing the potency of the herbal drugs, the victim started sending money to them.
However, the victim told EFCC operatives that he was in his office when the duo came to tell him that they wanted to buy a land to build a hotel. They allegedly told him that one of Adelagu's sons, who worked in an oil company was supposed to provide the N42million for the choice land. They were also said to have told Bori that the young man was sending goods worth three million dollars, which they hoped to sell to pay up the money.
It was gathered that the victim was invited to Ikeja, Lagos, to inspect the goods.
While in Lagos, they showed him some boxes filled with fake dollars. They allegedly gave him 400 dollars out of it. They also gave him chemical and asked him to wash it in his hotel room. After washing the black paper on the chemical, it became genuine dollars. The victim was convinced and excited.
Daily Sun learnt that he exchanged the money for local the currency. The fraudsters later told him that they needed to go to Port Harcourt to buy more chemicals to ‘wash' other ‘dollars' and requested the sum of N600,000.
Bori was said to have sent N100,000 to them, through local money transfer(LMT). The following week, he also sent another N100,000. But few days after, the suspects called him on phone to inform him that the man in-charge of the chemical had been arrested.
Still bent on making more money from him, Olawole called the victim, this time, claiming to be a police officer. He told him that Olawole was in the custody of the State Criminal Investigations Department(SCID) in Akure. He also told him that Adelagu had escaped to Badagry and that the police needed N20,000 to track him down. He was, however, called later to be informed that they had arrested Adelagu and recovered a Mercedes Benz car from him. The fraudsters promised to sell it at the rate of N1million and refund his money. This time, they requested the sum of N50,000 to facilitate the transfer of the car to Akure.
Still pretending that they were not in Akure, the fraudsters asked Bori to send N40,000 for air ticket, to enable them to meet him in Abuja to write his statement. The conmen called him on phone later to say that the Commissioner of Police in Akure couldn't allow them to travel to Abuja, until he sent N80, 000.
It was gathered that one of them later called to say that he was afraid of travelling by air and needed N10,000 to put his car in order.
Bori said he received another shock when they told him that the policemen coming down to Abuja had a fatal accident, resulting in the death of one of them. He was advised to send some money to save the life of the ‘hard working' Investigating Police Officer (IPO). He actually sent N4,500 for that purpose, but after a short period of time, he was told that the IPO had died.
Bori explained that he was again called on phone and told that a new CP had taken over and would need N100,000 to take over the case and to give some money to the dead IPO's family. The victim, who became tired of the transaction, later opened up and told one of his friends what had transpired between him and the fraudsters. It was the friend who alerted him that he was dealing with fraudsters. The victim later wrote a petition to EFCC, which swung into action that led to the arrest of the suspects.