Following the arrest of Two suspects alleged to have specialty in Internet Fraud and certificate forgery have been arrested by police operatives attached to the Assistant Inspector-General (AIG) Zone 2, Onikan.
The suspects were alleged to have specialised in forging documents of various international universities, as well as allegedly defrauded several unsuspecting victims on the internet.
Elvis Osakpolo Edokpain, 23, and Kelly Osas Endgieen, 24, were alleged to have acquired exotic vehicles and erected mansions in different parts of the country with the proceeds of fraud.
Added to their alleged charges is the attempt to bribe detectives with N66 million to be let off the hook. It was gathered that the investigation team had to report the development to the AIG, Adegoke Fayoade, who directed them to play along with the young men to secure the money as exhibits.
Their arrest, it was gathered, followed a tip-off to the Anti-Corruption Unit of the Zone that there was a group of boys who engage in forging foreign certificates.
Acting on credible intelligence, detectives were said to have stormed the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Ikeja, Lagos, from where they trailed the suspects to a hotel at Osapa-London in Lekki.
It was gathered that the young men soon got wind that the police were after them and made to flee the hotel but were arrested at the bus stop with their luggage.
Sources alleged that upon search of their luggage, detectives found a certificate from Blue Crest College, Ghana, belonging to Edokpiain, while a student identity card of Academic City College was recovered from Kenny Osas
Police sources further stated that the suspects confessed that they were made to pay 15,000 Ghana cedis (N1.5 million) for the certificate and 5,000 Ghana cedis (N500,000) for the resident permit. They reportedly paid a total of 26,000 Ghana cedis to procure the documents.
On further interrogation, they said they were doing it to evade arrest in Ghana since they don’t have any means of livelihood.
According to the suspects, whenever police intercepted them, they showed their passports that they were students and had no means of livelihood.
They further confessed to the police that they were into online romance scams and provision of foreign bank accounts for fraudulent transactions through “Facebook bombing”.
The suspects said: “We meet people online and present ourselves as American soldiers by name Captain Donald Rowe, whom we are impersonating on Instagram. He is a captain of the United States of America and on a peacekeeping mission in Syria.
“While we are engaging our victims, we will tell them that there are goods in Syria that if they are interested to buy, they should pay money and we will send the goods to you. We will show them pictures of good materials in Syria.
After they make the payment, we use our block chain wallets to collect the money or foreign bank accounts, which at last, are being credited in our Nigerian accounts. We have our partners in the UK, South Africa, and other countries and most of our victims are from Japan, Denmark and China.”
Sources said the police have written to the Ghanaian High Commission to get more information about the result and their alleged accomplices in Ghana said to be spearheading the fraud.
They have also spread their dragnet through the International Police, Interpol, to round up their foreign partners.
The suspects who claimed they were only able to attend secondary schools in Benin City lamented the fate that befell them stating that it was poverty and the need to make ends meet that drove them into fraud.
