The Oyo State Police Command has uncovered a building suspected to be a den of fraudsters veiled as a shrine at Oloya Village, Asejire, in Isokan Local Government Area of Osun State.
Five people suspected to be the operators of the place have been arrested by the police.
The suspects include: Sherifat Badamosi (48), Samsondeen Abiola(42), Oriyomi Adebayo (41), Alhaji Akeem Azeez Olayode (37), and Ayankunle Ayanlowo (43 ).
The headquarters of the shrine is about 30 kilometres away from Ibadan, the Oyo State capital, while the corporate office with the inscription “Obabiolorunkosi Traditional Hospital’ is located along Odo-Ona Elewe/Orita.-Challenge, area of the city.
The compound which is fenced with a wooden gate, consists of two bungalows with three rooms designed like a shrine. Charms, cowries and statues said to represent different idols were found in the rooms.
The police recovered three posh cars including Toyota Camry , Honda Cross-Tour and Benz 4matic car valued at N4.8milion, N3.5 million and N6 million from the suspects.
The Oyo State Commissioner of Police , Mr. Muhammad Katsina, who conducted newsmen and his men round the shrine for on the-spot assessment yesterday, said, the discovery was made through intelligence gathering.
“After an intensive and painstaking intelligence gathering on the clandestine activities of a criminal, highly fetish 419 syndicate which specialized in defrauding unsuspecting citizens of huge sums of money, the command’s Anti-Kidnapping Squad recorded a breakthrough when it burst the syndicate and uncovered it’s evil shrines at Oloya Village in Asejire.
“Also, discovered were two poultry farms, each of which costs about N50 million. Preliminary investigation so far revealed that the victims of the syndicate cut across all manners of people in the society including security officers, contractors, politicians, religious leaders, and foreigners. The cumulative value of the proceeds of this illegal trade is estimated to be over N800 million,” he said.
The police boss said the command is resolved to continue its clamp down on such evil forest used as dens for criminal activities in any part of the state.
The principal suspect, Alhaji Olayode, aka Santana, claims to be a fuji musician. He said that he started defrauding people six years ago after he was duped by some fraudsters who conscripted him into their gang.
“I was a good fuji musician before I was duped by some people. When I discovered that I was duped, they told me to join them in the shaddy business if I wanted to recover my money. That was how I joined them six years ago. I am not the leader of this group but we have duped more than 15 people over N30 million. We always prepared herbs and other medicines for people that consulted us for any assistance. We always charged them huge sums of money.
“Sincerely, we are fake herbalist. Most times, we would claim to be experts in treating diabetics and a lot of people bought into it. We were able to carry out our activities successfully because most Nigerians are greedy and they want instant miracles,”he said.
The secretary of the youths in the community, Ademola Oyesina, said, the fraudsters have been operating in the community for over three years, adding that they informed a traditional ruler, but he did not take any step about it.
“To curb their operations, we did a security gate at the entrances to the community but the leaders in the community oppose it. They are not members of our community but only come here at night in posh cars, while some guests also visit them. We used to hear strange noise late in the night but we couldn’t go close to them because we were scared of them.
The chairman of the community, Michael Ogundare, thanked the police for rescuing the community from the hoodlums who had been terrorising the community for over five years.