Makira Benson, a frozen food seller in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, has accused officers suspected to be from the Zonal 16 Anti-Fraud Unit in Bayelsa State of abducting and extorting N2.5 million from her younger brother.
Benson told FIJ that after the police officers arrested her brother, they took him to an unknown location in Bayelsa and demanded N4 million before they eventually settled for N2.5 million.
She said the incident happened on May 19 while her brother was running an errand for their mother, who owns a frozen food store in the city.
According to Benson, her brother had entered a tricycle and was on his way to the market when the police stopped him at Oil Mill in Obio Akpor. She said the officers asked everyone to alight from the vehicle. They began to search the passengers.
The officers, she said, turned to her brother, searched him for drugs, found nothing, and went through his phone looking for evidence of fraud. At that point, they had let go of the other two passengers.
“When they didn’t find anything, they asked how many bank apps he had. He said he had an OPay and Guaranty Trust Bank (GT Bank) account. His Opay had N1,000, but his GT Bank had my mother’s money,” Benson told FIJ.
Benson said her brother explained that the money was not his but had been transferred by their mother, a nurse, to purchase frozen food items for their store. The officers did not listen to him.
“They handcuffed him, seized his phone, and took him to their Hilux parked around Oil Mill. They then drove him out of Port Harcourt to Bayelsa. This was his first time in Bayelsa,” Benson said.
“Along the way in Bayelsa, they picked up a man, gave my brother his phone back and told him to switch it on. They instructed him to transfer N2.5 million to the new person, which he did, only after he had pleaded with the officers,” she said.
“They saw over N4 million in the GT Bank account and wanted it all. But after he negotiated, the guy who they had picked along the way, used his point of sale machine to withdraw N2.5 million and his charges of N50,000.
“After receiving the money, the officers switched off his phone again, drove him back to Rivers State and dropped him off by the roadside — not even at the same location where they picked him up.”
Benson said the officers told her brother they were from the anti-fraud unit in Bayelsa and that their superior had been sent to Port Harcourt to find internet fraudsters.
When FIJ called the Zonal 16 Police Spokesperson in Bayelsa for comment, he asked for Benson’s phone number, adding that he had not been briefed on the matter until FIJ’s call.
