It has been gathered that a businessman, named Oladimeji Isiaka, has reportedly gone bankrupt after losing the sum of N25 million to suspected fraudsters who defrauded him under the pretext of curing his headache.
According to report, the businessman who lived in the Sango Ota area of Ogun State, sold his house and five cars to raise the money to cure his headache. However, after realizing that he had been duped, he immediately petitioned the Zone 2 Police Command, Onikan, Lagos State and investigations by operatives of the command led to the arrest of five members of the syndicate at their base in Ibadan, Oyo State, identified as Alasela Ottun; Yetunde Mustapha, aka Iya Aje Funfun; Ibrahim Jimoh, aka Olobe Aye; Akeem Alabi and Oyegbile Lateef.
Speaking on the incident, a police source said Isiaka was an in-law of 45-year-old Ottun and had sought his counsel sometime in October 2016 when he had the headache, which defied medications. After Ottun, defrauded the victim of a few millions of naira, he then passed him to 32 years old Yetunde Mustapha, who pretended to be a white witch with answers to all his problems.
It was gathered that Yetunde, was said to have connived with her boyfriend, Jimoh, who arranged a scheme through which another millions of naira were collected from the businessman
“The man was into oil business. He called Alasela (Ottun), for help. The in-law called Yetunde (Mustapha) to pray for him. From there, she passed information about his case to her boyfriend and they started demanding money from him to cure his headache, which they said was a spiritual attack.
“They eventually collected N25m from him. The man sold all his property, including five vehicles and a building. He also lost his business and became bankrupt. When they knew that the game was up, they threatened to kill him if he told anyone. The man wrote a petition, which the police followed up, and they were arrested.” The police source said.
According to Ottun, an indigene of Iwo, Osun State, he only collected N180,000 from Isiaka, after which he called Yetunde to pray for him on the telephone without knowing that she had stored his number for ulterior motives.
“The man is my wife’s brother. He knew I was into herbal medicine and he called me for solution to his headache. I did some medicine for him, which didn’t work, so I called Yetunde (Mustapha) to pray for him on the telephone.
“I never knew she had stored his number. I suspected something was wrong after I didn’t hear from my in-law for about three months. I also went to Yetunde’s house, but she had packed out. I never knew she had given the number to her boyfriend and they had been collecting money from him.” He said.
Yetunde giving her own account of the incident said she pretended to be a white witch while wearing white costume at Ottun’s shrine whenever she spoke with Isiaka.
“Alasela (Ottun) and I had been defrauding the man for some time. He was the one that asked me to store the man’s number on my phone.
“Soon, I met Jimoh and we fell in love. He took me to his shrine and said he was an herbalist. I told him about the man and I gave him his number. I don’t know how they took the money from him. But they gave me N50,000.” She said.
But Jimoh, an indigene of Ibadan, Oyo State, said he had an agreement with Mustapha to share the money realized from the victim, adding that he collected N8million from Isiaka.
“When I met her, I told her that I was an herbalist and she told me about the deal. I asked her to give me the job, promising to share the money with her. She assured me that there would be no problem because the man was Alasela’s in-law.
“We asked him what he wanted and he said he needed money to start his own company. We promised to help him and he paid us N8m. The money was for him to be rich.” He said.
The chief herbalist, 39 years old Alabi, who disclosed that his duty whenever the gang brought a job was to “prosecute it”, said;
“I am the chief herbalist. Whenever they bring a job, I prosecute it. It is whatever the people seek that we use to defraud them. Some talk about business boom, some about making money or moving to a higher level in life. We make some fake concoctions and collect their money.”
While 27-year-old Lateef, Ikirun, Osun State indigene explained that Isiaka had been cured of the headache, but he craved wealth, adding that it was his greed that the gang exploited. He also explained further that the victim was shown a sack filled with fake dollars, adding that he was asked to bring N8m for the preparation of rituals that would enable him to spend the money and he was paid N900,000 from the money.
“I always stood outside as the Ifa errand boy. The man said we should help him to become rich and we showed him fake dollars in a sack. He first brought N5m and later added N3m. He was not allowed to touch the money. Whoever is looking for cheap things will run into heavy losses. He thought we cured him of his headache, not knowing it was God. We just took advantage of that to defraud him.”
Speaking on the incident, the Zone 2 Police Public Relations Officer, SP Dolapo Badmos, who disclosed that all the suspects would be arraigned at the end of investigations, said;
“We recovered charms, fake currencies and fetish objects from their shrines. The Assistant Inspector-General of Police, Adamu Ibrahim, has ordered that they should be arraigned in court.”
Source: Punch
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