Man who parades himself as Major-General nabbed for fraud

A 65-year-old man who has been parading himself as one Major-General Morgan, to defraud unsuspecting members of the public, has been arrested and is currently undergoing interrogation at the X-Squad of Lagos State Police Command, Ikeja.

 The man, Imoh Bassey, from Akwa Ibom State, is said to have defrauded one Kanayochukwu Ogbonna, of a huge sum of money, on the pretext that he would grant him a contract to supply rice to the Myhoung Barracks in the Yaba area of the state, and after collecting the money, he disappeared into thin air until the victim saw him at the Fola Agoro area of Shomolu and raised an alarm, leading to his arrest.

It was also gathered that the suspect had been a serial fraudster who has been detained severally at different divisional police stations, including Force Criminal Investigation  Department, Alagbon, on charges of using  fake bank alerts to dupe his victims.

The victim narrated how he fell a victim of the fake military man:

“I met this man for the first time when he came to my shop to buy something on the 12th of December, 2015. Later, he came back on the 16th. When he came, he said he had an accident and that he needed help.

From  five thousand, he said he needed N35, 000. Later, he said he needed N45, 000. That was after he had presented himself as a major-general. He showed me an identity card. I believed him because I didn’t expect an elder of his age to be lying. 

Meanwhile, I didn’t  have that money.  I collected N40, 000 from my neighbour and gave to him. He said I will supply 130 bags of  Christmas  rice to   Myhoung  Barracks, Yaba. So he collected four bags to show them the type of rice  I would be supplying, saying if they  were okay with it, I will do the supply on the 23rd of December. 

He took the four bags of rice that day,  and promised to pay money into my account the next day to enable me supply the rice, after  I explained to him that I didn’t have enough money to do the supply because my shop was burgled about four days earlier.

The next day, he said he went to the bank but couldn’t pay the money into my account because my account  was savings account, and that the money could only be paid into  a  current account.

When he came back in the night, he said I had to buy drinks for some top officers in the barracks whom he collected the contract from and gave to me. He said he needed  three bottles of America Honey to give them. He said each bottle of the drinks cost N7,800 but he collected N30, 000 from me to purchase the drinks.

I took him to my neighbour’s shop who sells drinks; he said the brands in the shop were fake and that he knew where to get the original. That same day, he said the money he will transfer into my account for the supply would be N2.8 million; that I must have eight percent of that amount (which is N224, 000) in my account.

I told him I didn’t have the money. He said he will provide the money the following day. And that he will help me open the account. And that once the money entered my account, I will withdraw it and give him back.

The following day, he called me in the morning and said he was able to raise N170, 000,  and that I should run around and get the balance of N54, 000. According to him, he had  a transaction at Ikeja Cantonment, and  that, after the transaction, he will be available for his own bank transaction. He asked me to come and meet him at  First Bank branch, Alausa, Ikeja.

Luckily, I was able to borrow the N54, 000 balance  which I took to him. He brought out an account opening form, filled it; brought out deposit slip, filled it. He wrote the amount, collected the N54,000 from me and added to the one he had  and put it inside a black lylon. He said I needed  to do ID.

As fate would have it, on  the 21st of  December, I was sitting  in my shop at Fola Agoro area of Sabo when a Mercedes Benz was carrying him and I saw him.  I raised  the alarm. People around asked them to park.

They refused  but because of traffic they couldn’t escape; with the help  of some soldiers coming from the bank, we took him to the barracks nearby  and discovered that he is not a  major-general. He was hiding the ID card from the soldiers when he saw them.”

In his defence, the fake army general said when he was interviewed by reporters:

“Are we judging the case here? If  we are not, then there is nothing to say. There is no point giving my own side of the story, because there is no  judge here, there is no magistrate. I have been here for three weeks; all I know is that I owe this boy, referring to the victim.

I loaned money from him; I wanted to use the money to put my car in order, because I had an accident. He is not my friend, he is my customer. That is all.”