Fake estate agents defraud newly-wed couple, pastor of N3.9m

Operatives of the Lagos State Police Command have arrested five fake estate agents for allegedly defrauding a newly-wed couple of the sum of N900,000, being rent for a three-bedroom flat in the Ikeja area of the state.

The suspects are Elabor Aruoya, who allegedly posed as the landlord; Adeshina Abegunde, who provided the accounts used for perpetrating the fraud; Olamide Ojajinu, who took the victims to the house; Segun Adewale and Matthew Adeniyi.

The Commissioner of Police, Zubairu Mu’azu, while parading the suspects during a press briefing on Wednesday, said the command received a distress call from the newly-wed couple that the suspects, who posed as agents, collected N900,000, from them as rent for a three-bedroom flat, and were unreachable afterwards, adding that investigation led to the arrest of the suspects.

Mu’azu stated, “On Friday, February 15, 2019, the police received a complaint from a newly-wed couple that they saw the advert of an estate agent on a wall and called the phone number provided. Someone, who claimed to be an agent, picked the call and said the owner of the telephone number was his partner. Later, they met with the partner, who took them to the Agidingbi area of Ikeja, where he showed them an empty three-bedroom flat.

“Thereafter, he made a call and informed the couple that the landlord was in the church and led them to a Catholic church in Ikeja. On arrival, an elderly man came out from the church hall and asked the couple: ‘Are you the lucky tenants?’ Having convinced the victims that he was the landlord, he gave them a GTBank account number in which the victims paid the sum of N900,000.

“The following day, when the couple went to the house to take possession, they were chased out by the rightful landlord. They called the phone numbers of the acclaimed estate agents and the supposed landlord, but the phones had been switched-off.

“Five suspects, Mathew Adeniyi, 42; Olamide Ojaniju, 42; Elabor Aruoya, 61; Adeshina Abegunde, 54; and Segun Adewale, were arrested. Investigation revealed that the same gang of fraudsters, had on Saturday, December 15, 2018, collected the sum of N3m as rent for a duplex in Ikeja GRA, in the same manner from the a pastor in Lekki. They will be charged to court.”

The CP also paraded a dismissed soldier, Shedrack Christopher, 29, who was arrested for allegedly stealing the valuables of customers and workers of Express View Hotel in the Ketu-Ijanikin area of the state.

“On Tuesday, March 19, 2019, around 6am, the Ijanikin Police Station received a complaint from Express View Hotel, Ketu-Ijanikin, that a lodger, identified as Shedrack Christopher, 29, who claimed to be a soldier, stole two Infinix Hot 4 handsets valued N86,000, from the bar and upon searching his hotel room, one axe, cutlass, knife, a Nigerian Army warrant card and army uniform were recovered from him. A Honda accord car with number plate SMK 846 was also recovered,” Mu’azu added.