The Police
in Cross River on Thursday arrested two students of the Department of Public
Administration in the University of Calabar (UNICAL) for defrauding applicants
through fake army recruitment, Owojela’s Blog reports.
The state
Commissioner of Police, Mr. Hafiz Inuwa, said the suspects were arrested on
October 22, 2007, by operatives of the command.
Inuwa said
the suspects had been impersonating military officers on their Facebook pages
which they used in defrauding their clients.
He said, “On
October 21, 2017, we got a tip-off through our public complaints unit that one
Mr. Reuben Bartholomew, had been duped by Daniel Onuta, 22, and Emmanuel Mba,
20.
“Upon
receiving this information, our men swung into action and the two suspects were
arrested. During interrogation, they both confessed to have defrauded Reuben
Bartholomew of the sum of N400,000.
“One of the
suspects, Onuta, claimed to be a colonel, while Mba impersonated a major. The
suspects will soon be charged to court.
“The
percentage of youth involvement in crime is alarming. Just yesterday
(Wednesday), we paraded 72 robbery suspects arrested within the state in the
last three months; majority of them were youths.”
The
commissioner said the command was determined to surmount the security
challenges and other forms of illegalities across the state.
The CP
further said the suspects would soon be charged to court as soon as
investigation was completed.
However,
there was a mild drama when the two suspects claimed that they were secondary
school pupils while being interviewed by the Media.
They later
admitted that they were 100-level students of the Department of Public
Administration, UNICAL.
Onuta said
he got N60,000 from the fraudulent transaction.
He said, “I
also applied to be enlisted into the army, but someone introduced us to this
transaction. I got N60,000 because they transferred the money into my account.
I did not know that it will turn out this way. This is unfortunate.”
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