 |
| The Den |
The Zone 2 Police Command has uncovered a
suspected den of fraudsters in a remote area of Isihun in the
Obafemi-Owode Local Government Area of Ogun State.
The den is located in a thick forest, and has about six buildings with four of them linked together by underground tunnels.
The police said the den was where the fraudsters had been allegedly duping their victims of money.
It was gathered that the lid was blown
off their operation on Monday after one of their victims, who is also a
member of the Ogun State House of Assembly, representing Waterside
Constituency, Harrison Adeyemi, reported them to the police.
Adeyemi, who was allegedly defrauded to
the tune of N15,000 by the fraudsters on his visit to the den, had
reported their activities to the police.
The lawmaker stated that he fell into
the hands of the suspects after he got airtime worth N1,500 through a
text message from one of the fraudsters.
Adeyemi said when he received the message on his mobile phone, he sent it back through another text message to the sender.
The lawmaker said he got a call later
from one of the fraudsters acknowledging his sincerity, and from there
the suspects started communicating with him and told him they could help
him, being traditional herbalists.
He said, “They told me they are Agbomola and they could assist me. But I ignored them. They were persistent and I decided to visit them.
“But when I got there, I discovered that
it was all a scam. But I played along with them. They told me to drop
money at each shrine point, and I had to drop N1,000 each at the 15
points they introduced to me.”
The fraudsters were alleged to have told the lawmaker to bring N40m and a lady during his next visit.
He said after some weeks without seeing
him, the suspects started threatening him on the telephone, claiming
that he had discovered their secret.
“Initially, I ignored them, but when the calls persisted till this month, I reported them to the police,” the lawmaker added.
It was gathered that after the report on
the activities of the fraudsters, policemen from the Zonal Intervention
Squad, Zone 2 Command, stormed their hideout, arresting two of the
suspected fraudsters.
The Assistant Inspector-General of
Police, Abdulmajid Ali, who led journalists to the den on Wednesday,
said the fraudsters had been in the business for some time before the
long arm of the law caught up with them.
He said, “We got a lot of reports about them and we decided to swoop on them. Two of them were arrested. Others are at large.”
He explained that the suspected
fraudsters used fake rituals to defraud the people, adding that the
police would investigate them further.
One of the suspects, who identified
himself simply as Alhaji Taye, confessed that the oracles in the shrines
were meant to deceive people in order to extort money from their
victims.
“We collect money from susceptible people; nothing else,” he added.
 | |
| Inside the Den |
No comments:
Post a Comment