A dismissed soldier, Ayobami Onigbinde, yesterday said he has used fake bank alerts to defraud unsuspecting people of not less than N600.000.00 within a month.
Onigbinde, 28, who was paraded by the Ondo State Police Command for the crime, said that he was dismissed from the Army Training school having used fake credentials to get admission into the military training school.
Since he was dismissed from the army, Onigbinde said that he engaged in using fake bank alerts to defraud unsuspecting members of the public.
He said used fake bank alerts to buy goods in Lagos, Osun, Ogun and Ondo state.
His words: “I was dismissed in the military. I was dismissed because I used fake credentials to get employment into the military. It was when I wanted to do pass-out parade that the Military Intelligence caught me. They detected that I used fake state of origin.
“I got the apps of the bank. I told people that I am a soldier. I will tell them that I lost my ATM at Maiduguri during the war against Boko Haram and that I wanted to do bank transfer.
“I can use any bank app. I will send fake bank alert to the person. It was one of the persons I sent fake alert to that tracked my number and I was arrested. I made N600.000 in one month.”
Parading Onigbinde alongside other suspects, the Commissioner of Police, Mr Undie Adie, said a team of detectives from the Anti-cultism Squad Akure acting on a tip-off, arrested one Ayobami Onigbinde aged 28 and one Aroyeun Oladayo aged 22, who specialize in defrauding members of the public of their money or goods.
Adie said in perpetrating their act, the duo would present themselves as Army officers and proceed to obtain either goods or money from their unsuspecting victims and generate fake electronic money transfer alert on their own phones which they show to the victims as proof that they have paid for what they collected. The victims are then deceived to believe that they will soon receive their credit alert as delays are often due to network problems.
The Police chief said, “upon interrogation, they confessed to have so defrauded one Eze Patrick and 18 others.”
Some of the items they used the fake bank alert to purchase and were recovered from them included assorted clothes, Hisense fridge, one Elepaq generator, one century stabilizer 5000voltage, two wardrobes jeans trousers, T-shirts and shoes.
Aside Onigbinde and his accomplice, the Police chief said on Monday policemen from Igbotako Division were alerted by members of the public that armed robbers were operating along Mile 49 Area, Ore-Lagos Express way, dispossessing commuters of their valuables and at the same time attempting to kidnap some of them.
He said the Policemen were promptly mobilized to the scene and engaged the hoodlums in a shoot-out which forced the robbers to escape into the bush.
However, the Policemen pursued them and consequently arrested one Ibrahim Usman ‘m’ aged 19yrs from Bagudu in Kebbi State.
He confessed to the crime and claimed that one Abdullahi led other group members namely; Umoru, Mohammed and Ibrahim from Kwara State for the operation. He also stated that they had been robbing and kidnapping members of the public in that area for a very long time.
