How scammers duped Job seeker N1.3m

The State Commandant of the Corps, Mr Abdullahi Ibrahim, made the disclosure in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Maiduguri on Monday.

Ibrahim said the suspects were arrested between June and July 7 at Bulabulin area of Maiduguri following a complaint by their victim, one Saidu Abba-Kawo.

He said that the suspects, names withheld, allegedly connived and defrauded the victim of his N1.3 million under the pretext of praying for him to get a good job.

Ibrahim added that the suspects collected the money for the procurement of a ram, chicks and perfume; items meant to enable them conduct rituals for the victim.

“The victim sold his land and tricycle to raise the money, which he gave to the suspects to pray for him to secure a job.

“The victim was traumatised and reported the matter to the command,” he said.

The sum of N580, 000 has, however, been recovered from the suspects, according to the commandant.

The security boss also inform that  the command arrested another 28-year-old suspect (name withheld), known to be a specialist in Automated Teller Machine (ATM) card scam.

Ibrahim revealed that the suspect snatched an ATM card belonging to one Dauda Makinta and withdrew about N500,000 from his account.

The suspect, he said, was in the habit of loitering at ATMs under the guise of assisting unsuspected members of the public to withdraw money.

“While pretending to be helping the people after obtaining their PIN, he will replace their ATM card and enter a wrong PIN. After a couple of attempts, the machine withholds the card.

“The suspect will then ask his victim to go inside the bank to complain, after which he will swiftly move to another bank and withdraw the money from the account,” he said.

However, Ibrahim said the command recovered the sum of N250,000 from the suspect.

He said all the suspects would be prosecuted as soon as investigations into their cases were completed.