[b]Two Nabbed Over Kidnapping Two-year-old Boy
By Femi Ogbonnikan, Correspondent, Lagos
They had been driving about the Lagos metropolis, pretending to be commuters and unregistered taxi operators popularly called kabu-kabu, but in the actual sense they were looking for prey to be lured into their net so they can dupe the unsuspecting victim.

In going about their nefarious act, Stanley Ifeanyi Ubabuike, Chidi Ani, Ndidi Nwanne (female) Mary Amaechi (female), and Osuagwu would dress up in the morning or anytime of the day and meet at a designated place, particularly at a rush hour when commuters find it difficult to get vehicles to their destinations.

One of them would be on the steering while three would pose as passengers in the car and make allowance for one more passenger that would eventually be their prey or in their own term Mugu.

While those on the field roped in their targets, another set would be somewhere in a house, waiting for them to bring them in. These ones were often referred to as prophets or men of God.

Whenever the foot soldiers made a catch by luring the mugu into fictitious business discussions, they often ended up at their hideout where the prophet would commence his prophecy to the victim. He would be made to swear an oath of secrecy before they would start milking him by making all forms of financial and material demands from him until he was emptied. This gang was smashed recently and the members paraded by the Lagos State Police Command Public Relations Officer (PPRO), Frank Mba, after they allegedly duped one Chinwe Precious Chidi.

Mba while parading the suspects disclosed that the amount of money involved was incidentally not exceptionally high.

“It is an amount that can be described as a very low amount in Nigerian context. But we decided to parade these suspects because we want to send a message clearly that the era of impunity is gone and that such a thing cannot and will not continue to operate without very strong challenge from the society generally and from the police in particular.

“Again, we also saw there is a need for us to expose the modus operandi of this syndicate so that innocent Nigerians, up there could pick up one or two lessons from the way they operate, so that when they are confronted with similar stories, they will be able to react effectively.

“Thirdly, we want to bring out the kind of desperation associated with this kind of crime. The amount involved is about N4,500. But you will be surprised that even as at the time they had taken the victim to a hide out and found that about N2, 500 was with her, they still went with her to an ATM to collect N2,000. That was the level of desperation, the extent they can really go,” Mba said.

He pointed out that for a young lady that could only boast of N2000 in her ATM, “you could also understand her level, and in spite of that, they wouldn’t even show mercy, they wouldn’t even sympathise with her.

“She will tell you how she was hoodwinked and driven to their criminal den and how they attempted to extort money from her. Obviously, if this girl had millions of naira, they would have made millions from her. The amount of money collected from her could be hundreds of thousands to some other persons,” the PPRO noted.

The victim, Precious gave the account of her encounter with the suspects as follows,       

“I was going to work, I was at the Bus Stop waiting for a vehicle. I was there for 30 minutes and one hour, so I saw their vehicle, a car, I stopped it and entered. When I entered, there was an argument for the fare but I usually paid N80 from there to my destination, but the driver said that I had to pay N150, but I insisted that it was between N70 and N80 that I always paid. They said no problem that I should sit down.”

She explained that when they moved to about three bus stops, another argument ensued, this time between the driver and one other passenger, a lady who was in the car before she boarded it. The lady, according to her, was sitting in the front seat beside the driver. The argument with the driver, according to her (victim), was that she would no longer pay the N150 the driver charged her, adding that the driver told her that she entered from a long distance.

“So they were just arguing and the driver parked and said he was no longer going with the woman, vowing that if she was not ready to pay the N150, she should get down from the car. So we started begging him. I even begged on her behalf that he should please allow the woman, since she may no be buoyant enough. So the driver later came in and this time again with another topic.”

The new topic, according to her, was that the lady did not tell him that the carton she loaded in the boot of the car contained money but rather that she lied that the cartons contained Pampas.

The lady, according to the victim, responded that she was trying to escape from her husband.

“She told the driver that she was running away from her husband. That her husband was an Alhaji, alleging that her husband asked her to sleep with a dog.”

She explained that because she refused, her husband started maltreating her and that along the line, he travelled to Saudi Arabia with his business partner and she decided to run away from the house with his money.

The suspect, according to the victim, narrated how her husband kept a secret room in the compound which he did not allow any body to enter, adding that it was when he travelled that she decided to enter the room to know what her husband was hiding only for her to discover cartons of money in the room and decided to escape with one carton, containing N80 million. Some of the cartons, according to her, contained American Dollars.

She allegedly begged for cooperation with the passengers and the driver promising that she would reward them accordingly.

“The driver agreed and asked the remaining passengers to get down for him to take the lady to where she was going. But the elderly man among them called Papa (Ani) pleaded that we were going together, threatening that if they dropped him, he would report the matter to the police. The woman stated pleading and said that she will settle everybody, pledging that if the matter got to the police, the police would take all the money and still charge her to court,” the complainant said.

“I told them that I was going to work and that I did not have such time to waste by going up and down with them, but the driver insisted that if I should be allowed to go, I would reveal the secret and that I should go with them promising that they would give me my own money, asking if I didn’t need money?”

According to her the driver advised he to forget about going to work that day, but to call her employer and tell her that she was ill and may not be able to report for duty that day.

“He said I should not bother about my work, that after sharing the money, I will not bother to work again, but start up my own business,” she added.

According to her, more dimensions were introduced into the story when the woman told them that her husband must have deposited some charm on the money, which would require sanctification or cleansing before the money could be used.

“The driver asked me the church I attended, I said I was a catholic,” adding that by that time, they were approaching her church, St Patrick’s Catholic Church, Alaba International. “So I told them that we could go to my church if that was the case, but one of them objected, claiming that there was a woman of God that could do the work better, stressing that they should go there.” She added that when she asked why they should go that far when her church was closer, the man said that they should go to a place they knew better and that the place was at Igando.

“That was how they took me to Igando. On getting to Igando, they took me to one room, brought a candle and said they were looking for a woman. All of a sudden, a man came out and Papa told him that he was looking for Mama Israel. The man asked whether she was owing us, but the man said no but that we came to find out something from her. The man said Mama Israel died since January, claiming to be her son and e is now the prophet in charge.”

According to her the self acclaimed prophet Stanley Ifeanyichukwu Ubabuike said that the charm they placed on the money was very powerful, stressing that “we needed some materials worth N18,000 from each of us to break it.”

According to her, they told her to bring her own money but that she told them that her salary was not even up to that amount, adding that besides that the month had not ended, and as such had not taken her salary.

“They said that I should try asking how much was in the bag. I told them it was just N2,500. They said I should bring it. After collecting it, they asked me if I did not have ATM card. I told them that my bank was not around there because I use Diamond Bank. They said I should do inter-switch, that was how the driver took me to Oceanic Bank and I withdrew the little money I had. I was having N3,000, but Diamond Bank cannot release all, so I just withdrew N2000. The driver came back and picked me. So after everything, the man said that he had called the people that would bring the spiritual items they would use in washing the money, boasting that God has helped us, that I am a young millionaire now. He said that my own share of the money was N16 million. They said that the money in the carton was N80 million and that there was a prophecy that the money should be shared equally. They said if I really wanted to use the money, they needed to wash the money with 10 percent of our money each meaning that I would have to bring N1.6m.”

She claimed that they urged her to get her own money because they all had means of getting theirs.

“I said that there was no way I could get such money, but they said that if I was determined to get it, I could get it. The man was kind of prophesying for me and asked where I worked and I told him. So he commanded me that I should go there and bring my boss’ money, because I was the person depositing money for my company in the bank. But I told them that in the past three months, they had not sent me to the bank and that I cannot make it. They insisted on any amount that I could make even if it was N100,000. I told them I could not.”

At that point, she said they said that all of them should go into covenant that nobody, no man of God, even her parents should know about their transaction. “But I told them that if I took even N20,000 to my house, my mother would ask me how I got it.”

The victim claimed that it was in the process of the argument that security operatives came into the matter.

The suspects incidentally confessed their involvement to the crime but ascribed it to the circumstances and conditions they found themselves.

One of the suspects said he joined the business barely two to three years ago. But the prophet said none of them could be said to be the leader of the gang as each played various role when a prey mugu fell into their net.

“All of us are involved, but before I started it I was duped of millions of naira. After two years they were still asking me to come and take money but due to frustration, I had to join them, not that any body is interested in crime,” he said.

The suspect who said he had worked in the bank but started spare parts business with his shop at Apapa when the bank became distressed in 1987 said his encounter with fraudsters who duped him was in 1995, adding that there after he traveled to Ghana and later came back to join the people that duped him when the going became too bad.

“I don’t know how many people that have fallen victim to me. There is no special role as per the prophet thing I played. It is all about conspiracy, the ultimate target is to make money. It is just greed. There is no money in all these things the girl is saying. If she is not greedy, she will not come to look for N80million,” the self-appointed prophet asserted.

He equally admitted in an interview with journalists that it was also greed that made him fall victim. He said he had OND from IMT Enugu in 1985 and dropped out from the University where he was reading Economics due to financial constraints.

“I was a standard clerk in the bank, I am a Christian, a Catholic, My name is Ifeanyi, I am 42years-old I am single.

One of the ladies among the suspects Ndidi Nwanne says she is married with three children who are between the ages of 4 and 8. She claimed that her husband was late.

The suspect who claimed that she is from the Igbo speaking part of Delta State said: I don’t have any special role, none of these men is my boy friend or relation to my late husband, I regret what I have done.”

For Mary Amaechi, a another female suspect who claimed to be an indigene of Umiahia and married, her husband is in Lagos but very sick. She added that he does not know the nature of the business she does.”

Chidi Ani a.k.a Papa from Nkanu in Enugu said he was just new in the business. [/b]

http://www.independentngonline.com/DailyIndependent/Article.aspx?id=5111

I hope they make them face the wrath of the law.

Moved From Politics Section