The Nigeria Police Zone 16 headquarters’ anti-fraud unit has arrested a Port Harcourt-based herbalist, Nnedim Ikechukwu, for alleged fraud totaling N1.150 billion and illegal possession of fake $1,290,000 dollars.
According to the police, while the anti-fraud unit was investigating an allegation of N1,150,000,000 fraud levelled against the suspect by one of his victims in the Borokiri area of Port Harcourt, Rivers State, a search at the suspect’s home in Omogwa community revealed suspected fake $1,290,000 dollars hidden in two medium size boxes.
The suspect, an Imo State native, claimed to be a native doctor and traditionalist who was contacted by two businessmen to provide them with a spiritual charm that would prompt an expatriate to give them a multi-million naira oil contract, according to sources at the zonal police headquarters.
According to the source, “the native doctor charged them N550,000 each for the job and they paid him N1.6 million. The suspect purportedly prepared the charm and sometime in July 2022, they claimed the charm worked and an expatriate businessman in Nigeria secured them an oil supply job worth N152 million dollars, which is equivalent to N1,150,000,000.
“After they were paid for the job, the complainants brought the N152 million dollars to the suspect’s shrine for spiritual cleansing as directed by the suspect. But to their surprise, the suspect escaped with the whole dollars to Owerri, Imo State and refused to pick phone calls. They traced him and caught up with him but he brought out fake dollars to replace the genuine dollars they gave him.”
It was also reported that a team of detectives led by ASP Ubi Iwara and armed with a search warrant, went to the suspect’s home and recovered $1,290,000 in US dollar notes suspected to be counterfeit.
The Zone 16 Command’s zonal public relations officer, CSP Ikwo Kelvin Lafieghe, confirmed the suspect’s arrest, saying he was paraded for alleged role in Advanced Free Fraud, also known as 419, and illegal possession of fake dollars.
