Syndicate Disguising As Ex-President Jonathan’s Partners Arrested Over N1.4m Fraud In Anambra

The Anambra State Police Command, weekend, announced the arrest of a two-man syndicate that specializes in draining bank accounts of their unsuspecting victims through blocking, cloning, and generating their biometric verification pins. The victims also claimed to be business partners of former President Goodluck Jonathan.

The suspects, Dr Madu Ifeanyi, 50, and Mr Linus Onyekwere, 60, of Ugonakpanpa, Onitsha, allegedly defrauded one Mr Emmanuel Anamene of Odakpu, Onitsha, of #1.4m under false pretence that they had a Commonwealth loaning programme, which required an investor to pay #500,000 and gain N1m after a month.

The suspects, according to a police source, also claimed to have contracts they executed with former President Goodluck Jonathan, and the CBN requested them to pay #20m before the contract money would be paid to them. They therefore told Mr Anene to bring #500,000 to enable them to raise the #20m needed by the CBN for the release of the money.

The victim revealed that he had since September 2020 given the sum of #1.4m to the suspects, but had neither received any interest nor the principal money he invested, and that the suspects had refused answering his calls.

The PPRO, Anambra State Police Command, CSP Haruna Mohammed, warned the public to desist from patronizing quick money promoters, and enjoined victims of such frauds to report to the police for immediate action.

According to him, “The command issued similar alerts in September 2020 where fraudsters disguise as CBN staffers in charge of all bank transactions which are non-existent, and place phone calls to their targets whose bio data is downloaded either through facebook or other social media platforms, and then demand their dates of birth or biometric verification numbers (BVN) in order to gain access to their account numbers to swindle them through electronic means. 

“The public who fall victims to such syndicates are enjoined to immediately report at the Police Area Command headquarters, Onitsha, to enable the police to carry out discreet investigations to bring the perpetrators to justice. The command also urges the public to refrain from availing their personal information, particularly national identification numbers (NIN), dates of birth and biometric identification numbers (BVN) to avoid being victims of fraudulent practices.”