metro

Lagos scammers defraud, rape lady in uncompleted building

Published

2 years ago

September 26, 2022

Rotimi Fisher and Sherif Adebayo

Two suspected fraudsters, Rotimi Fisher and Sherif Adebayo, have allegedly defrauded a 23-year-old girl in the Ipaja area of Lagos State.

The suspects also reportedly lured the victim to an uncompleted building on Majiyagbe Street, Ipaja, where Adebayo allegedly raped her.

PUNCH Metro gathered that the victim was on her way to a destination in Iyana Ipaja when Fisher approached her to help him locate an address.

The suspect, who reportedly presented himself as a foreign businessman to the victim, said he came to Nigeria to deliver goods to one of his clients at the address and to collect his outstanding payments.

A source said after Fisher approached people for help to no avail, the young girl offered to help, but upon checking the address, she did not know the location.

The source said, “But as the girl was trying to help Fisher, Adebayo suddenly came as a neutral person and offered to assist Fisher, whereas they were working together. Adebayo said the address was fake, but started motivating the girl on the need for them to help Fisher.

“Fisher, while lamenting being stranded, claimed that he was in possession of some papers that could be converted to plenty money but told Adebayo and the girl that he needed money to buy chemicals to convert the papers to money.

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“Adebayo quickly dropped N60,000. The girl, who seemed convinced, gave Fisher her gold jewellery and N10,000 and also went to withdraw N65,000 from a nearby ATM and gave it to Fisher, who told Adebayo and the girl to take an oath not to reveal his secret to anyone.”

After taking the oath, it was learnt that Fisher gave them a location to meet him the next day.

When they got there, the Ogun State indigene reportedly showed them the sack containing the money and told Adebayo and the girl that the spirit responsible for converting the papers to money was asking for human blood as sacrifice.

“Fisher said to prevent both of them from dying, they needed to have sex. He also used the oath they took to threaten them. So, the girl out of fear of dying, followed them to an uncompleted building around 9pm on Majiyagbe Street, Ipaja, where Adebayo had sex with her,” the source said.

PUNCH Metro gathered that after Fisher, 42, and Adebayo, 32, perpetrated the crime on September 3, 2022, the girl left the uncompleted building and proceeded to the Ipaja Police Station to report the case for investigation.

The policemen, led by the Ipaja Divisional Police Officer, CSP Tokunbo Abaniwonda, reportedly swung into action and in a two-week sting, arrested Fisher and Adebayo at their hideouts in Ipaja on September 16, 2022.

During interrogation, the suspects confessed to the crime, saying they only manipulated the victim.

Adebayo said, “I only slept with her once and I used a contraceptive. I got the contraceptive at a mallam’s shop in the area. I used the contraceptive because I don’t really know the girl. I needed to protect myself.”

Narrating how he perpetrated the crime, Fisher said he met Adebayo through a friend, Bisi, who he claimed trained him on how to formulate stories to defraud unsuspecting members of the public.

He said, “I have been asking a lot of people for the address. While some said they did not know the place, others advised me to go back to the country I came from, but I said I could not go back because of the goods that I brought.

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“The girl got convinced when I said I was looking for people to help me count Nigerian money because I said I don’t know how to count it. Meanwhile, I and Adebayo had been talking to people but they did not answer us.

“It was when the girl was passing that I explained to her and she listened to me. So, Adebayo also pretended to be a passer-by and when he was passing, I signalled to him, and asked the girl to help me ask him for the location of the address and Adebayo said he had not heard of such an address before.”

Reacting, the state Police Public Relations Officer, SP Benjamin Hundeyin, said the suspects had been charged to court.

PUNCH Metro gathered that Fisher and Adebayo, who are both married with two children each, were arraigned at the Ejigbo Magistrate’s Court on three counts bordering on obtaining by false pretences, fraudulent conversion and sexual assault, offences punishable under sections 411, 314 (1), 287 and 136 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State 2015.

The men were later remanded in prison as the matter was adjourned till October 17, 2022, for further hearing.

Fraudsters have been deploying different tactics to swindle unsuspecting members of the public out of their valuables in different parts of Lagos State.

In August 2022, 35-year-old Olumide Womiloju was arraigned for fraud before Chief Magistrate P.E. Nwaka at a magistrate’s court sitting in the Yaba area of the state, for allegedly obtaining N5m from clients after promising to process their visas to travel overseas.

Also in August, a suspected fraudster, Emmanuel Rolland, was arrested for allegedly using counterfeit money to defraud unsuspecting residents in the Ikorodu area of the state.

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Notorious cultist, Pelele, gunned down in Rivers

Published

10 hours ago

November 17, 2024

Trends Admin

Notorious cultist, Pelele, gunned down in Rivers

Operatives of the Rivers State Police Command have successfully neutralized a suspected cultist and kidnapper, Gbarani Bume, popularly known as Pelele, in Luawii Community, Khana Local Government Area.

Bume, a reportedly known member of the Iceland cult group, had allegedly been terrorizing the Beree/Tabaa area of Khana LGA alongside his gang.

The Command’s Public Relations Officer, Grace Iringe-Koko, confirmed the incident in a statement released in Port Harcourt on Sunday.

According to Iringe-Koko, the police acted on intelligence that Pelele and his gang were attempting to abduct a site engineer in Luawii. Upon arrival, the operatives were met with gunfire from the suspects. In the ensuing shootout, Pelele sustained fatal injuries and later died, while his accomplices fled with gunshot wounds.

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The statement reads: “The Rivers State Police Command has made a significant breakthrough in its efforts to combat crime, neutralising a notorious cultist and kidnapper, Gbarani Bume, a.k.a. Pelele, a native of Bere Community in Khana LGA.

“He was a member of the Iceland Cult Group, which has been terrorising the Beree/Tabaa axis of Khana LGA.

“On the 15th of November 2024, operatives from the Bori Division, acting on a tip-off, were mobilised to Luawii Community where Pelele and his gang were attempting to kidnap a site engineer.

“Upon sighting the operatives, the hoodlums opened fire, resulting in a fierce crossfire, during which Pelele was fatally wounded. His accomplices escaped with various degrees of bullet wounds.

“Items recovered from the suspect include one AK-47 rifle, two magazines, and 10 rounds of live ammunition.”

She further stated that investigations are ongoing to track down the fleeing gang members, emphasizing the Command’s commitment to tackling crime and enhancing public safety in the state.

Notorious cultist, Pelele, gunned down in Rivers

metro

Court stops police from arresting 68 Obaseki’s allies

Published

10 hours ago

November 17, 2024

Trends Admin

Former Edo State Governor, Godwin Obaseki

Court stops police from arresting 68 Obaseki’s allies

A High Court in Edo State has issued an order restraining the Nigeria Police from arresting 68 associates of former Governor Godwin Obaseki.

The ruling follows a petition submitted by the acting chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the state last July.

The affected individuals include political appointees, local government chairmen, and aides, among others.

The case, referenced as B/266M/2024, lists the Inspector General of Police, the state Commissioner of Police, the Deputy Inspector General of Police (Force CID Abuja), and the Police Service Commission (PSC) as respondents. Representing the applicants, senior counsel Olayiwola Afolabi (SAN) sought an interim injunction to prevent the police from arresting his clients.

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Granting the injunction, Justice AT Momodu ruled:
“An order of interim injunction is hereby made restraining the respondents either by themselves, police officers in their department and/or any police officer acting under their instruction from inviting, arresting and detaining the applicants in any of respondents’ office, in respect of the petition written by the chairman of All Progressives Congress (Edo State) dated 18/07/2024 to the 1st respondent pending the hearing and determination of the originating motion filed by the applicants in the enforcement of their fundamental human right.

“It is further ordered that the enrolled order of the order be served along with the originating motion on the respondents.”

The interim order remains in effect until the substantive suit is determined.

metro

26 dead, 59 missing as Israel hits Gaza, Lebanon in deadly strikes

Published

10 hours ago

November 17, 2024

Trends Admin

26 dead, 59 missing as Israel hits Gaza, Lebanon in deadly strikes

Strikes by the Israel military killed dozens in Gaza on Sunday, the civil defence said, while also hitting a Hezbollah stronghold near Beirut’s international airport.

Israel has been fighting on two fronts since September, intensifying attacks on Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah after nearly a year of cross-border clashes alongside its war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

A year after the Gaza war was triggered by Hamas’s October 7 attacks on its south, Israel vowed to stop the Islamist militants from regrouping in the north of the Palestinian territory, launching a major assault there.

In the latest violence in the besieged Palestinian territory, the civil defence agency said Israeli air raids killed at least 46 people.

The deadliest strike, in the middle of the night in Beit Lahia in the north, killed 26 people, including women and children, and left at least 59 others buried under the rubble, said civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal.

Another strike killed 10 people in the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza, where a separate strike on a house claimed the life of a woman, he said.

An Israeli drone strike killed five people in the southern city of Rafah, Bassal said, adding another strike killed three women and a child in the Nuseirat camp.

Hamas-run Gaza’s health ministry on Sunday said the overall death toll in more than 13 months of war had reached 43,846.

The majority of the dead are civilians, according to ministry figures, which the United Nations considers reliable.

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Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack that sparked the war resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

– Lebanon rescuers mourned –

On Israel’s second front in the north, AFPTV footage showed several strikes hit Hezbollah’s south Beirut stronghold, shortly after the Israeli military warned people to evacuate.

Columns of smoke were seen rising over the capital’s southern suburbs, where Lebanon’s only international airport is located.

Further south, overnight Israeli air strikes and shelling hit the flashpoint town of Khiam, the Lebanese state-run National News Agency reported.

Following the bombardment, the Israeli army said about 20 projectiles were seen crossing from Lebanon into Israel, and that some of them were intercepted. Emergency services did not immediately report any casualties.

Israel has escalated its bombing of Lebanon since September 23 and has since sent in ground troops, following almost a year of limited, cross-border exchanges of fire begun by Hezbollah militants in support of Iran-backed Hamas in Gaza.

Its military on Saturday said Hezbollah had already “paid a big price”, but vowed to keep fighting until tens of thousands of Israelis displaced from the north can return home.

Israeli forces also shelled the southern area of Lebanon along the Litani River, the NNA said on Sunday.

The news agency had earlier reported strikes on the southern city of Tyre, including in a neighbourhood near UNESCO-listed ancient ruins. Israel’s military said late Saturday it had hit Hezbollah sites in the area.

In Lebanon’s east, the health ministry said an Israeli strike in the Bekaa Valley killed six people including three children.

Hezbollah said it fired a guided missile that set an Israeli tank ablaze in the southwestern Lebanese village of Chamaa.

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In eastern Lebanon, funerals were held for 14 civil defence staff killed in an Israeli strike on Thursday.

“They weren’t involved with any (armed) party… they were just waiting to answer calls for help,” said Ali al-Zein, a relative of one of the dead.

– Gaza famine alert –

Lebanese authorities say more than 3,452 people have been killed since October last year, with most casualties recorded since September.

Israel announced the death of a soldier in southern Lebanon, bringing to 48 the number killed fighting Hezbollah.

A UN-backed assessment on November 9 warned famine was imminent in northern Gaza, amid the increased hostilities and a near-halt in food aid.

Israel has pushed back against a Human Rights Watch report this week alleging that its mass displacement of Gazans amounts to a “crime against humanity”, as well as findings from a UN Special Committee pointing to warfare practices “consistent with the characteristics of genocide”.

A foreign ministry spokesman dismissed the HRW report as “completely false”, while the United States — Israel’s main military supplier — said accusations of genocide “are certainly unfounded”.

In Israel, police said they arrested three suspects after flares shot near the home of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the central city of Caesarea, south of Haifa, while he was away.

Demonstrators in Tel Aviv on Saturday reiterated demands that the government reach a deal to free dozens of hostages still held in Gaza.

The protest came a week after mediator Qatar suspended its role until Hamas and Israel show “seriousness” in truce and hostage-release talks.