On their first day of work, suspected fraudsters allegedly defrauded their employers out of N407,000 at a makeshift Point of Service (POS) kiosk in front of the Nigeria Union of Journalists in Lokoja, Kogi State.

Within five hours of resuming work, Victor and Victoria, two new hires who were suspected of being scammers, transferred the money out of their employers’ bank accounts and point-of-sale terminal Saturday at around 1pm.

As per the statement of one of their employers, who only went by Bello, Victoria and Victor had previously applied for jobs in their shops and were required to provide a guarantee to support their application.

When the suspects returned to the stores last Saturday and asked to begin working, their employers regrettably permitted them to continue; the matter of guarantors and other procedures would be resolved at a later date.

“Last Monday, the two persons, who gave their names as Victoria and Victor came to our shops and requested to be employed. We told them to produce guarantor, according to the business law, of which they promised to do it shortly.

“On Saturday, they came back again, pleading to be allowed to start work. After much probing, we coincided to their request and allowed them access to all our financial documents, including the terminal and its pin.

“Five hours after resumption, they disappeared from both shops, and abandoned the POS terminal, including all financial documents. Surprisingly, I was sitting on the bench beside the kiosk without even knowing when they left.

“I later got a debit alert of N240,000, withdrawn to an old generation bank from the terminal and my bank deposits,” Bello said.

Similarly, Blessing, the other manager of the second kiosk, reported that she received a transaction alert but initially mistook it for a credit alert. She then checked and found that N167,000 had been taken out of the bank deposit and the terminal at the same bank.

“On rushing to the NUJ centre , I discovered that our employees have left. We have reported the incident to our lawyers and the police authorities. We hope to sort things out with the bank on Monday,” she said.

An Inquiry regarding the incident was submitted to SP Williams Aya, the state Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), but there was no response . (Daily Independent)