Tuesday, December 10, 2024 -A 28-year-old suspected drug addict, Oluwanisola Quadri, has been arrested for fraud a week after he was released from prison in Oyo State.
The suspect was apprehended by personnel of Oluyole Security
Surveillance Team in Ibadan after he had duped many Point of Sale (PoS)
operators and traders while pretending to have transferred money to their
accounts through bank apps.
According to the Nigerian Tribune, his mode of operation was to approach
a PoS operator to ask for cash, stating that he would transfer the money
collected, including the usual commission to the operator through his bank
app.
However,
all he was doing was copying a credit alert on his phone, changing the name to
that of the person he was interacting with, changing the date and time, and
forwarding it to the person’s number to make it seem like it was a credit alert
from his bank.
Claiming that he started the fraudulent act in June, Quadri was able to
succeed for some time until he was arrested by the Ashi Division of the Oyo
State Police Command in September and charged to court.
Unable to fulfill bail conditions, the suspect was remanded in Agodi
Correctional Centre, Ibadan, and was there till late November when some fellow
inmates helped him to get sureties and fulfill other bail conditions to set him
free.
However, immediately he regained freedom, he started the act again as a
result of his claim that he had no money to survive on.
Quadri, who was suspected to be a drug addict and high on the illicit
substances, was like someone in a trance when speaking with the publication,
drawling and barely audible.
It was gathered that the suspect took to drugs after he got admission
into Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Ogbomoso, and became so
addicted that he used his school fees paid by his father to consume it.
It got to a stage that he had to opt out of school when he was not
allowed to sit for examinations without paying his fees.
His father, said to be a popular petrol dealer in Saki Town, was said to
have discovered his son’s addiction to drugs when he found that he was using
the money given to him for his tuition fees to take drugs. The drug addiction
stopped him from taking some of his examinations while he could not also
graduate because of the fees he was owing.
Despite the sadness and frustration he brought, his father reportedly
did a lot to cure him of the addiction by sending him to a rehabilitation
centre. Leaving after spending three months at the centre, Quadri went back
into drugs. Eventually, he started practising fraud to get money to purchase
the illicit substances.
Nigerian Tribune learnt that the suspect would go to Point of Sale
operators, collect cash and send fake receipt of credit alert to them,
pretending to have paid back the money he collected.
He would also go to chemists, buy medications and pay through
non-existing bank app transfer, after which he would send the receipt he
conjured.
The suspect was reported to have bought goods from traders, pretended to
have carried out cash transfer, and left with his purchases, only for the
trader to later discover that no payment was made into her account.
His cup became full recently when he went to a PoS machine operator at
Olomi Junction in Ibadan, asked for N20,000 cash and sent the receipt of the
transfer of N20,400.
An argument arose when the operator said he had yet to see the credit
alert of the suspect’s payment. As he mounted a motorcycle to leave the
transaction scene, he was followed and apprehende
It was
further gathered that he just returned from Agodi correctional centre a week
before he was apprehended over the same offence.
The OSST
Commandant, Olusegun Idowu, said that when Quadri’s father was informed of his
latest arrest, he refused to show up, asking that he be dealt with according to
the law. It was as if the man had made up his mind not to indulge him furthe
In an
interview, the arrested suspect admitting he was into drugs.
“I’m
from Saki but I now live at Beere in Ibadan. I came to Ibadan in July to learn
truck driving. I studied Accounting at Ladoke Akintola University (LAUTECH),
Ogbomoso in 2018, but I didn’t go for National Youth Service Corps because I
was owing school fees," he said.
"My father is a
petrol dealer and well known in Saki. He came to my school to check my results
but I had carried over three courses that I did not sit for. I was absent on
the days of the examinations. I had to spend an extra year in the school.
“My father asked where I was that made me to be absent on the exam days.
He also discovered that I paid half of my school fees in a particular session
when he gave me the full amount. He was so angry that he left me alone to solve
the issue myself. I struggled and did the papers but could not go for service
because of unpaid fees.
“My mother had four of us -two males and two females. She died in March
2022 and I went home in Saki. I stayed with my father for about a year and he
asked me to learn truck driving. He was so disappointed in me that he was no
longer interested in my education because I took to drugs while there.”
He said his father sent him to a private rehabilitation centre in
Abeokuta, Ogun State, where he spent three months.
“On my return, however, I joined friends that I was not supposed to be
with and went back into drugs," he explained.
“I was taking Siwon, pentazocine and also smoked PK. I was introduced to
drugs by some students when I got to LAUTECH in 2013. I started taking the
drugs in 2015 and used my school fees to buy drugs.
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