As at the last count, and before the wind blew and the rump of the chicken was exposed, 19 unsuspecting businessmen had fallen victims to Internet fraud allegedly perpetrated by a 28-year-old dismissed soldier, Ayobami Onigbinde.

This confession came as a suspected cultist/rapist admitted that his gang targeted secondary school girls aged below 20 years for marathon sex.

Years back, Ayobami was kicked out by the Army authorities for allegedly using fake papers to gain admission into military training school.

Nemesis was said to have caught up with him when he was about passing out from the school as the eagle eyes of the Army personnel discovered that he presented fake documents at the point of entry. Without batting an eyelid, he was booted out for forgery.

Why he was not prosecuted for forgery remains unknown. However, after roaming the streets and doing odd jobs but could not make ends meet, the dismissed soldier decided to venture into Internet business.

But he picked the wrong aspect which was to defraud innocent and hapless businessmen that he came into contact with.

He posed to them as an Army officer who just arrived from Borno State where he and others went to fight the lslamist group, Boko Haram.

Ondo State Police Commissioner, CP Udie Adie, confirmed that Onigbinde confessed to defrauding 19 unsuspecting businessmen.

Modus operandi Adie said the suspect and his alleged accomplice, Aroyeun Oladayo, would pose to their victims as stranded soldiers who just returned from fighting Boko Haram in Maiduguri, Borno State and that, while their victims tried to help them out of their predicament, they ended up being defrauded by the suspects.

They adopted a strategy: complain of not having cash to their victims and collect goods and generate fake electronic money transfer alerts from their phones.

The fake alerts, according to the CP, were evidence to the victims that they had paid for what they collected.

But what the suspects allegedly did was to simply generate the fake alerts on their telephones using compromised banks apps.

Speaking with Sunday Vanguard, Ayobami confessed to the internet fraud and the fact that he was booted out of the military.

He said, “I was dismissed from the military because I used fake papers to get admission into training school.

“It was when I wanted to do my passing-out parade that the military intelligence caught me. They detected that I used fake state of origin. I was born in Kwara State. But my state of origin is Osun State.

“I got the apps of the banks. I usually told the people that I am a soldier from Maiduguri who just returned from fighting Boko Haram and that I wanted to do bank transfer.

“I used bank apps. I will send bank alert to the person. It was one of the persons I sent fake bank alert to that tracked my number and I was arrested.

“I made N600,000 in one month of doing the business of Internet fraud. I went into this business to make ends meet. I was trained to handle gun but decided not to go into armed robbery, take people’s money by force and possibly kill them but this Internet fraud which is less risky”.

‘No regret’

The suspect, who said he had no regret for doing what he did, said after he was kicked out by the military, he had nowhere to go and that he needed to survive.

Explaining how the suspects were apprehended, CP Adie said, “A team of detectives from the Anti-cultism Squad, based in Akure and acting on a tip-off, arrested Ayobami and Oladayo who specialise in defrauding members of the public of their money or goods.

“In perpetrating their act, the duo will present themselves as Army officers and proceed to obtain either goods or money from their unsuspecting victims and generate fake electronic money transfer alerts from their own phones which they would show to the victims as proof that they have paid for what they collected.

“Upon interrogation, they confessed to have so defrauded one Eze Patrick and 18 others.

“A search of the houses of the suspects, led to the recovery of assorted clothes, Hisense fridge, one Elepaq generator, one Century 5,000watts stabilizer, two wardrobes, some shoes, some jeans trousers, T-shirts and charms”.

•Excerpted from a Sunday Vanguard report.

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