A serial fraudster who went about duping unsuspecting Nigerians with fake bank alerts, has been arrested by detectives attached to the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), Lagos State Police Command, New Telegraph reports.
It also turned out that the man identified only as Asomba, has employed the trick to buy items worth over N13 million as well as defrauding many people of huge sums of money.
The 35-year-old Asomba who has been described by the police as a notorious criminal, allegedly jumped bail two years ago without a trace before he was arrested again on November 30.
The police said he was arrested in 2013 after he defrauded one of his victims of several millions of naira using the fake and was charged to Agbo-Malu Magistrates’ Court 3, Apapa Road, but after he was granted bail, he skipped and continued perpetrating his crime.
His final waterloo finally came after he defrauded one Moses Adebayo of N9 million and another trader at Okokomaiko of N4 million through similar means. He was about pulling the same stunt on one Adebayo, a major distributor of Nigerchin Development Company’s products with a shop at the Alaba International Market.
A police source narrated his modus operandi:
"The suspect had placed some orders for cables worth N9.5 million and later sent a fraudulent bank alert to Adebayo, making the trader to believe that his account had been credited.
After loading the goods into the truck he brought, the suspect did not pay. He said he was in a hurry and left.
Before the close of that day, the victim received an alert of N9.5 million from his bank, United Bank for Africa (UBA), and confirmed payment. The suspect soon called the owner of the goods, asking if he had received the alert, to whom Adebayo answered in the affirmative.
The grateful trader even gave the suspect’s supposed workers N50,000 for transport expenses, with an appeal that they should continue to patronise his company.
The matter took a different dimension when the trader went to the bank a few days later to verify the money paid into his account by his customer and was told that no money was paid. The bank said it was called ‘magic alert.’
The matter was reported at SARS. While the detectives were hunting for him, the suspect went to the warehouse of another trader at Okokomaiko to buy iron worth N4 million.
He also paid them via Internet banking, using fake bank alert.”
Upon his arrest, Asomba confessed to the crime, promising to pay back the money.
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