Three suspected fraudsters, who held a businessman hostage at Durumi, Area
One, seized his property documents and forced him to sign a Diamond bank
cheque for N8,050,000 has been arrested in Abuja
The suspects, Okechukwu Emeka (39), Ugorji Maranatha (37) and Momoh Jimoh.
The businessman, identified as Mr.
Efulu, had advertised online that a duplex at Prince and Princess
Estate, Gaduwa, Abuja, was for sale with a N160m price tag.
He subsequently got a phone call from Emeka, who expressed interest in the property, but the duo reportedly settled for N140m. Emeka invited Efulu to his residence at
Durumi for finalisation of the transaction, but unknown to the latter,
Emeka was nursing a plan to dispossess him of his property as well as
the money.
Efulu said that Emeka offered to pay in dollars, but he declined saying he preferred naira.
According to him, he sat in Emeka’s
living room expecting the money, two men emerged from another room, held
him down and handcuffed his hands and chained his legs.
“Emeka then forced me at gunpoint to
sign three cheques for N450,000 which he asked his accomplices to go and
cash. He also directed them to take my car to a hidden location; they
seized my phones and deleted all my contacts, text messages, Whatsapp
chats, pictures and other things; Emeka also forced me to write another
cheque for N8.050 million,”
Efulu narrated that he was kept in a
room, adding that he pulled down the window blind, stretched out one of
his hands through the burglary-proof and shouted for help.
“When Emeka heard my shout, he rushed to
the room, but I had locked the door. But he came into the room through
the ceiling and I fought him with all my strength. When he observed that
he could not overpower me, he bit me in the back and managed to
escape,” he said, adding that the police showed up shortly after and
rescued him.
Efulu observed that he would have been
killed by the gang, but they needed him to be alive to confirm the
withdrawal from the bank.
But Emeka, who claimed to be a crude oil
dealer, stated that he paid $303,000 to Efulu for his property at N372
exchange rate, adding that they had problems because he refused to leave
after collecting the money.
He explained that the N8.050 cheque was
the discount he negotiated with Efulu, stressing that he asked his
friends to handcuff the property owner “because I felt threatened by his
continued stay in my house for over four hours.”
Asked how he got the pump action rifle
and the handcuffs he used to subdue Efulu, Emeka said he bought it from a
friend, a policeman.
He said, “I didn’t plan to hurt him, if I
had any evil intention, I wouldn’t have invited him to my house. I paid
him $303,000 for the property and he gave the money to his agent, one
Mr. Joshua who went out to a bureau de change operator to check whether
it’s genuine, but the mistake I made was using the handcuffs on him.”
Maranatha, who described himself as a
security consultant, stated that Emeka directed them to put the
handcuffs on Efulu because he was owing him, adding that he promised to
release him once he settled the debt.
“He invited us to his house and told us
that we would help him to put handcuffs on a man who was owing him, so
when we got to his house, he asked us to wait in the children’s room; he
later asked us to hold down the man and we handcuffed his hands and
chained his legs,” he admitted.
The suspect stated that Emeka directed them to cash four cheques, but they could only cash three for N450,000.
The third suspect, Jimoh, corroborated
Maranatha, adding that they were arrested by the police as they were
coming back from the bank with the money.
The police have said they would be charged to court soon.
Fraudsters hold businessman hostage, force him to sign N8m cheque in Abuja
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