Officials of the Lagos State Taskforce on Environmental and Special Offences (Enforcement) Unit have arrested a man for selling phones stuffed with ‘fufu’ to unsuspecting buyers at the Computer Village, Ikeja, Lagos, Southwest Nigeria.
After his arrest, it was discovered that instead ofthe original phone, an empty Phone Case is stuffed with fufu to make it heavy and look like the normal phone. It is then sold to unsuspecting members of the public.
The suspect, 24 years old Samson Adebiyi from Ogun State, was arrested on Wednesday at the Computer Village after the man, Semiu Ambali, who first fell victim to his antics, set him up.
According to Adebiyi, those selling fufu phones to unsuspecting buyers are many at the Computer Village.
The syndicates usually have several phones on them and do not have shops at the Computer Village. They approach a customer and display their phones and once that customer is interested, they bring out the particular phone the person wants to buy, remove the battery, test it so that the customer can be sure it is okay.
In the process of the customer being distracted,the seller quickly replaces it with another phone (but of the same brand). The only difference is that this one is fake and is stuffed with Fufu
Once the unsuspecting buyer accepts the phone and pays, the sellers relocate to another part of the Computer Village where no one couldsee them and play the same tricks on others.
On this occasion, Ambali was shown the phone he wanted to buy by Adebiyi, who agreed to sell the phone at N8,000.
According to him, the phone was tested and certified okay and that at the moment he was distracted, the phone was replaced with a fufu phone and that he only realised this when he got home.
The following day, he spent almost the whole day looking for the suspected swindler and as luck would have it, he caught up with him and alerted the police.
Instead of grabbing him, he decided to play the same game all over again with him. He agreed to pay N4,000 for another phone that had been tested and certified okay by Adebiyi. He pretended to be distracted, only for the fake phone syndicate to exchange it with another fufu phone.
It was then the taskforce officials who were lurking around, grabbed Adebiyi and took him totheir office and detained him.
The suspect confessed to the act, saying that hedid it to make ends meet. He said several of his colleagues were still at the Computer Village engaging in the same act.
Adebiyi said he used to be a cobbler and that since the business was not lucrative, he decidedto engage in selling fake Fufu phones
Taskforce Chairman, Bayo Sulaiman said the taskforce had received several complaints about the activities of syndicates selling fufu phones, saying this was why it raided the Computer Village recently to stop street trading.
He said the suspect would be charged to court and punished if found guilty


http://www.nigerianeye.com/2012/08/man-arrested-for-selling-fufu-phones.html?m=1

Its high time!! Those criminals jobbed my guy 18k for a blackberry bold2! The criminal Cooked up a story dat his wife is in labour and he needs money urgently dats why he is selling it so cheap! It later turned out to be fufu phone.

this trick is as old as the world............... that people still fall for it is

Same thing also happened to a friend of mime for about 2 years ago. He wanted to by me a phone on his back from Computer Village. Getting to Sango, he brought out the phone wanting to play music from it, to his 'iyalenu' it was a fufu phone that was sold to him. O gaooooo, for how long shall we continue in this?

the dirty old trick , i cant believe people still fall 4 dat.lolz

This is serious. Which one is 'fufu phone' again? Am hearing this for the first time.

Everyday for thief,one day 4 d owner.

Fufu phone,what a funny name?

This is so funny...crazy!

I know a dude that bought a blackberry, tested there and working...only for him to get home and it had transformed into a "china phone"... ...atleast in his own case he got a "functional" phone.

Well i sell Laptops and blackberry phones in computer village, most of these fufu phones are tricked by stingy or people that are looking for very cheap phones, i myself i don't trust and cant recommend anybody there in computer village.
In 2010 my iphone3 got spoilt and wanted to repair i gave it out to an engineer as i write now 27/08/2012 the guy went away with #10,000 and my iphone the worst part is that i do see him everyday. The issue of fufu phones here is an example a phone sold for #100 but a person selling fufu phone will tell you he wants to sell for #20 or #15 you can see the difference of course a normal Nigerian would be happy and he will loose his memory.
There was one day i was closing from office those fufu guys show me a bold5 white he said he wants to sell for ##35,000 the particular phone i do sell for #65,000 i said its too expensive, he told me to pay #30,000. So i told him am not interested i left him and after some mins another person came to show me that particular phone for #20,000. I told him i dont buy stolen phones that i go to shops to buy he got angry abused me and left.
This is an idea how to trick them back tell them you wanna buy test with your sim and never return the phone back till you make payment they wont collect the money they will tell you bring me my phone it you give them then you are tricked. Most of those phones are stolen I guess the buyer is a greedy guy, I cant fall for those cheap trick and that's why people are scared of computer village.
Most things are stolen, refurbished and all sorts of things. My friend bought a Nokia phone last week Friday from a retail shop to my surprise they removed the original earpiece and put fake china earpiece, i was very angry and i told the guy to let us go back there and get the place messed up.
i hate cheating even the first BB i bought in computer village i returned it 5times its from one of those big ships with big names there. So my advice is let us be vigilant when buying things, computer village has become something else.
Those Fufu tricks had been there since i started learning how to repair laptops in 2008 i don't why people still fall for that old tricks. May God help us all.

I was also tricked at computer village when i went to buy an IPOD only to reach home and found out that i was tricked it was a China IPOD that was sold to me after the stupid seller showed and tested an original Apple IPOD for me, since then i promised never to have anything to do there again.

good for him he should b jailed i just hope he is d same guy dat sold fufu phone to me last year

Big.game:
My own advice is to those buying phone from alaba...never buy phone from that place called st.peter road except you have someone trustworthy there...but incase you are duped simply look for nearest task force there. if you want to buy or exchange phone in alaba, just ask for phone village. almost everyone there are resonsible people

that st peter road is just like computer village.

A Major reason why i heartily dislike going to Computer Village, It seems as if every business there is out to take advantage of customers.

next2breze well there are still good people there like me.

if you want to buy at computer village pls always use a shop