I paid fraudsters N40,000 for week-old baby’

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A 26-year-old woman, Chiamaka Anusim, has disclosed that some suspected fraudsters, operating at Ajegunle area of Lagos State, asked her to bring N40,000 in order to buy a weekold baby.

Anusim said that the conmen told her that the week-old baby would be used to cleanse some imported phones, which they wanted to give her to sell. The Rapid Response Squad (RRS) said it had arrested five of the 15 suspected fraudsters.

They are Adeola Oladele (42), Friday Philip (33), Israel Ibe (35), Oyewole Thompson (30) and Onyebuchi Godwin (20). The suspects were arrested at Oko Baba Sule, off Wilma Street, Olodi, Apapa. RRS operatives recovered several denominations of fake US dollars and four mobile phones from them. Anusim said that a member of the gang, Thompson, was the first to hoodwink her.

She said: “I gave Thompson my ATM card. He went to the nearest bank and withdrew N40,000. The next day, I went there, he collected my ATM card again and withdrew N70,000.

“The third time I went for the phones to be given to me, he collected N60,000 from me. When I asked further when he would give me the products, he asked me to come with another N40,000, a roll of white handkerchief, a walking stick and three live fowls.

“He said the items would be used to do some rituals before the products could be given to me. He said N40,000 was to be used to procure a week-old baby to concoct the charm.”

It was gathered that the incident occurred about 3pm. The RRS operatives were said to have nabbed the suspects while they were carrying out their nefarious activities. RRS operatives swooped on them and bundled them to their state headquarters at Alausa, Ikeja for interrogation. Thompson said it was greed and unemployment that lured them into the crime.

He said: “We’re 15 members and we used to split ourselves into groups whenever we wanted to go on operation. We usually operate around Boundary Market and Marine Beach, all in Apapa.

Those are the places we look for victims. “All we do is just to talk and convince victims that we are genuine.

We will ask them to bring some Nigerian money, which we would promise to either change into US dollars or British pounds. Toronto is the leader of our syndicate. People like Ifeanyi, Emeka, Bobo and Onyibo head different groups.”

Source: New Telegragh