2 Fake Officials Arrested For Swindling Abesan Estate Landlords

CYRIACUS IZUEKWE 

 Police detectives from Ipaja Division led by the Divisional Police Officer, CSP Tokunbo Aboniwonda, have arrested two fake Lagos State Government officials who defrauded the landlords of Abesan Estate under the false pretence of saving their houses from demolition.

P.M.EXPRESS reports that the suspects, Badmus Agunbiade, 42 and Rotimi Odebumi, 41, who had claimed to be the officials of Lagos State Building Investigation Corporation, LSBIC, were trapped for allegedly obtaining huge sums of money from some landlords in order to save their houses from demolition by the State Government.

The suspects were said to have convinced the landlords with their identity cards as staff of LSBIC and many had paid them not knowing that they were fake.

However, the scam was leaked to the DPO, Ipaja Division, who deployed the officers and apprehended them on 27th July, 2020. They reportedly confessed that they were fake and had no link with LSBIC.

This was disclosed by Mr. Odeyemi Olufemi, the Public Relations Officer of the Abesan Jakande Estate, who explained that the suspects came to defraud residents of the Jakande Housing Estate, Abesan, through the privilege of the LSBIC, which came three years ago to mark some illegal buildings in the Estate for demolition but ended up in Court and they lost out eventually to Lagos State.
He explained that during the attempt for demolition, there was an argument which left the demolition of the illegal buildings untouched till the appearance of Badmus Agunbiade and Rotimi Odebumi to the Estate to defraud affected landlords the sum of N500, 000 each.
Mr. Olufemi said that the fraud negotiation had been going on for long until this time when they contacted him (the PRO) of Estate on the issue and he reported the matter to the Police, which advised him to play along with them.

He said on 27th July, 2020, the action was heralded when the duo (the suspects), who claimed to be agents of the Lagos State Building Investigation Corporation approached him for the purpose of obtaining about N500,000, which they claimed was to save their building from being included amongst those marked down for demolition by the Lagos State Govt.
Olufemi noted that the suspects had been getting this sum from other residents using same guise for years before they were apprehended by the Police, who interrogated and discovered that they were fraudsters.

When P.M.EXPRESS reporter visited Ipaja Division to reach the proactive DPO, CSP Abaniwanda, she was said to have gone out for routine monitoring of the area.
However, Police sources said that the suspects have since been charged to Court for the alleged offence.