Three paraded for duping oil marketers N178m

The suspects

Three men have been arrested by the Lagos State Police Command for allegedly duping oil marketers of over N177m.

According to Police authorities, the suspects, Clement Eneche, aka Aladay Clinton; Lawrence Oduh and Mike Eneche, and one Emmanuel Amakre, who is now at large, used forged bank credit documents to get petroleum products on credit from companies.

The police alleged that the fraud syndicate floated three companies namely, Hephzibah Energy Resources Limited, Deep Flank Energy Resources Limited and Blue Moon Energy Resources Limited which they used in perpetrating their illegal acts.

Police Public Relations Officer, Ngozi Braide, said the suspects would claim they had paid and made sure that their victims received bank alerts.

Braide added that the victims would later realise that they had been duped after they had released their products.

She said, “The syndicate sourced for products from unsuspecting victims and bargained the price with the issuance of cheques to the agreed sum. The innocent victims will then receive false alerts on their mobile phones from the banks and they would release their products to the fraudsters.

“Later on, the transactions will turn out to be scam because the fraudsters’ accounts are not funded and before the victims come to their senses, they would have absconded.

“They have succeeded in duping people of N177m and Clinton is the kingpin.”

One of the victims, Chinedu Asomuga, said the suspects paid in N4.1m cheque into his Zenith Bank account. He said after he had received an SMS alert, he released the products but the cheque bounced a day after.

He said, “They approached me in March with an LPO saying they wanted to supply products to Eko Hotel. They were to pay me N4.1m through internet banking while I would receive N1m by cash.

“I later received an SMS from the bank that a cheque of N4,192,000 had been deposited into my account so I then gave them the two trucks of diesel.

“The following day I received an alert from the bank that my cheque had bounced.”

Another victim, Mrs. Abiodun Aginni, who spoke while fighting back tears, said the suspects duped her of N6.1m in October 2011.

She said she trusted them because they had done business together in the past but after the last deal, they fled.

She said, “Mike (Eneche) collected two trucks of diesel from me, saying he wanted to supply a construction company. He issued me a cheque, but unfortunately, the cheque bounced.

The suspects however denied the allegations, saying they only owed money but did not dupe anyone.

Clinton said, “I have been into this business for over 10 years. I am just being victimised because some people wrote petitions that I owe them money. I owe because business has been slow.”

PUNCH