THE adage, ‘One day for the thief, every day for the owner,’ recently came to bear on a 28-year-old man, Oluwanisola Quadri, when he was apprehended by personnel of Oluyole Security Surveillance Team in Ibadan, Oyo state, after he had duped many Point of Sale (PoS) operators and traders while pretending to have transferred money to their accounts through bank apps.

His style of operation was to approach a PoS operator to ask for cash while he would transfer the money collected, including the usual commission due to the operator to them through his bank app.

However, all he was doing was to copy a credit alert in his phone, change the name in it to that of the person he was interacting with, change the date and time and forward it to the person’s number to make believe it was a credit alert from his bank.

Claiming that he started the fraudulent act in June, Quadri was able to succeed for some time until he was arrested by Ashi Division of the Oyo State Police Command in September and charged to court.

Unable to fulfill bail conditions, the suspect was remanded in Agodi Correctional Centre, Ibadan, and was there till late November when some fellow inmates helped him to get sureties and fulfill other bail conditions to set him free. However, immediately he regained freedom, he started the act again as a result of his claim that he had no money to survive on.

Quadri, who was suspected to be a drug addict and high on the illicit substances, was like someone in a trance when speaking with the Nigerian Tribune, drawling and barely audible.

Reports had it that the suspect took to drugs after he got admission intoLadoke Akintola University of Technology, Ogbomoso, and became so addicted that he used his school fees paid by his father to consume it.

It got to a stage that he had to opt out of school when he was not allowed to sit for examinations without paying his fees. His father, said to be a popular petrol dealer in Saki Town, was said to have discovered his son’s addiction to drugs when he found that he was using the money given to him for his tuition fees to take drugs. The drug addiction stopped him from taking some of his examinations while he could not also graduate because of the fees he was owing.

Despite the sadness and frustration he brought, his father reportedly did a lot to cure him of the addiction by sending him to a rehabilitation centre. Leaving after spending three months at the centre, Quadri went back into drugs. Eventually, he started practising fraud to get money to purchase the illicit substances.

Nigerian Tribune learnt that the suspect would go to Point of Sale operators, collect cash and send fake receipt of credit alert to them, pretending to have paid back the money he collected.

He would also go to chemists, buy medications and pay through non-existing bank app transfer, after which he would send the receipt he conjured. He was reported to have bought goods from traders, pretended to have carried out cash transfer, and left with his purchases, only for the trader to later discover that no payment was made into her account.

His cup became full recently when he went to a PoS machine operator at Olomi Junction in Ibadan, asked for N20,000 cash and sent the receipt of the transfer of N20,400. An argument arose when the operator said he had yet to see the credit alert of the suspect’s payment. As he mounted a motorcycle to leave the transaction scene, he was followed and apprehended.

It was further gathered that he just returned from Agodi correctional centre a week before he was apprehended over the same offence.

The OSST Commandant, Olusegun Idowu, when contacted by the Nigerian Tribune, said that when Quadri’s father was informed of his latest arrest, he refused to show up, asking that he be dealt with according to the law. It was as if the man had made up his mind not to indulge him further.

In an interview, the arrested suspect narrated his story thus: “I’m from Saki but I now live at Beere in Ibadan. I came to Ibadan in July to learn truck driving. I studied Accounting at LadokeAkintola University (LAUTECH), Ogbomoso in 2018, but I didn’t go for National Youth Service Corps because I was owing school fees.

“My father is a petrol dealer and well known in Saki. He came to my school to check my results but I had carried over three courses that I did not sit for. I was absent on the days of the examinations. I had to spend an extra year in the school.

“My father asked where I was that made me to be absent on the exam days. He also discovered that I paid half of my school fees in a particular session when he gave me the full amount. He was so angry that he left me alone to solve the issue myself. I struggled and did the papers but could not go for service because of unpaid fees.

My mother had four of us -two males and two females. She died in March 2022 and I went home in Saki. I stayed with my father for about a year and he asked me to learn truck driving. He was so disappointed in me that he was no longer interested in my education because I took to drugs while there.”

Admitting he was into drugs, he said his father sent him to a private rehabilitation centre in Abeokuta, Ogun State, where he spent three months. “On my return, however, I joined friends that I was not supposed to be with and went back into drugs.

“I was taking Siwon, pentazocine and also smoked PK. I was introduced to drugs by some students when I got to LAUTECH in 2013. I started taking the drugs in 2015 and used my school fees to buy drugs.”

What led me to crime

“I came to Ibadan to learn truck driving, but I had nowhere to stay. I was just squatting around. I had told my dad that I knew someone I would stay with. I went to Ojoo area where trucks are sold and told them of my mission to learn, but my father asked me to go to another place where I would learn it better. I couldn’t get another place before I came to Beere.

“It is true I was giving fake alerts to the people I made purchases from and PoS operators. The mode of my operation was to edit bank debit alert, paste it on message box, change the name on it, date and amount. I would then send it. Most of the PoS operators were not paying me if they didn’t see the alert with credit balance. I was a customer in the chemist I went to buy drugs

“I started the fake alert in June this year. The idea occurred to me because I studied Accounting. I tried it one day and it worked. However, after about two fake transfers, I was arrested in September by the police at Ashi Division. I was charged to court and remanded in Agodi prison when I could not fulfill bail conditions immediately.

“I was calling my father to inform him but he always cut the calls abruptly without me being able to explain the situation I was in. I left prison in November when some inmates contributed money and helped to pay for my bail. They also got me two sureties.

“This morning, a week after I left prison, I didn’t have money, so I went to a PoS operator to collect money. As usual, I edited a bank transfer and sent it as a message to the operator, but he said he would not give me the money until he would get credit alert.

“I left the place, and I saw some men who called me and said they needed to discuss with me. I was with them when a call came from someone I bought drugs worth N10,000 from the previous day. She started shouting that I had duped her. The men heard and I was apprehended.

“I used to take Pentazocine, which is for pain relief, whenever I was weak, and I would indeed get relief. I admit that there has been no gain in taking illicit drugs. I have been trying to get out of them, my attempts to get a job were unsuccessful.”

Victims tell their stories

Olanrewaju Balkis, a PoS operator who lives at Boluwaji area said: “The suspect came to me and said that he wanted to do a transfer so that he could collect cash from me. He asked whether I used regular banks but I told him I had Moniepoint and Opay. He first did as if he was leaving but turned around and said he would try Opay if it would go through. I gave him my name and he tried it, so I believed.

“After that, he said that the money had been sent to me. I wanted to check it but he said that since he had been debited, it meant that the money had been paid into my Opay account.

“My child wanted to urinate, and as I was attending to her, the suspect collected the money from me, mounted a waiting okada and left. When I checked and did not see the N30,600 he was supposed to have sent, I traced him but did not see him. I accepted my fate.

“My husband however received a call this morning that someone had been arrested and I should come and check him. I got there and saw that it was the same person who duped me.”

Olaniyan Tawa, a chemist

“He came to me and said that he had malaria, asking for medications. He claimed to have transferred N10,000 to me but I told him to wait until I would get the alert. At a point, he started claiming stomach pain. He said he had been debited. I pitied him and collected his number. I was calling him but he said it might be network issue.

“The following morning, I called him severally but he didn’t pick up my calls. Later, someone picked it and asked me what happened. I narrated it to him. The man told me that he had been arrested and was at Olomi area, asking me to come.”

Akinbola Mariam, PoS operator

“He did same for me in August. He asked for withdrawal of N20,000 which he would pay through transfer. When my employee didn’t get credit alert, he told her that he wanted to buy some things at Olomi area and would drop his phone until his return.

“While the phone was with me, people started calling. One said that he came to Iseyin and collected N55,000. My husband went to drop the phone with the OSST Commandant since August 19 until he was arrested today.”

The Commandant said that the suspect had been transferred to the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, Idi Ayunre, in Oyo State Command as directed by the chairman of Oluyole Local Government Area, Honourable Akeem Olatunji. (Nigerian Tribune)