An Assistant Superintendent of Police, Mr. Jasper Ireaku, on Wednesday told an Ikeja Magistrate’s Court how an accused, Mr. Timothy Moses, attempted to defraud a former Lagos State commissioner of police, Mr. Marvel Akpoyibo, of N1.7m.
Ireaku, a prosecution witness, told the court presided over by Magistrate Olufemi Isaac, that Moses and others, said to be at large, had wanted to defraud the police chief through a non-existing contract.
He said he was part of the team, who arrested 36-year-old Moses, while trying to cash the money at a branch of Fidelity Bank in Umuahia, Abia State.
Ireaku said the group perpetrated the fraud and the money was paid into their account in Lagos, but preferred to cash the money in Umuahia in their bid to evade arrest.
The witness said sometimes in September 2009, one person from Moses’ group contacted the former CP on the telephone and proposed a non-existing contract.
Ireaku said the accused proposed a deal of procuring and supplying 100 packets of “oil indicator rings,” adding that each of the packet worth N850,000.
He said although the police chief was suspicious of the caller, he went ahead to tell the suspects that he was interested in the contract.
The witness said the former CP subsequently directed him to act on his behalf.
Ireaku, who was led in evidence by the prosecutor, Mr. Bartholomew Nwankwenye, said the alleged fraudsters proposed to the police chief that when the rings were procured they would readily sell them at the rate of N1m per packet to a stand-by buyer, Mrs. Grace Ebih.
He also testified that one member of the gang, identified simply as Charles, had called him, promising that the profit on each of the packet would be shared between him and the police chief in ratio 40 to 60 per cent respectively.
The witness said Ebih, a suspected member of the group, later called him for the supply of two of the packets of the ring as samples, adding that Charles asked him to approach Moses for the supply of the rings.
Ireaku, said Moses, who posed as a pastor and Manager of Cable Metals Limited, Oba Akran, Lagos, asked him to pay the sum of N1.7m to his Fidelity Bank account in Lagos for the supply of two of the rings.
He said an officer of the Umuahia Area Police Command alerted him on September 29, 2010, telling him that they had arrested the accused while trying to cash the money in Umuahia.
The matter was adjourned till August 31 for continuation of trial.
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