The Lagos State Police Command has issued a public advisory urging individuals to always return money to the same source to prevent unwittingly being used for crime. This comes after the police received a Twitter user’s allegation about officers from Area F Ikeja, who reportedly arrested his brother on Friday, and extorted N460,000 from him for a crime he did not commit. The man, with the Twitter handle @LordDeleke, called on the police to intervene and investigate the matter.
The police spokesperson, SP Benjamin Hundeyin, while responding to the allegations on Twitter, pointed out that the man’s claim was misleading. According to Hundeyin, the man’s brother had received payment from someone identified as John Doe to sell a phone. When John Doe decided not to proceed with the purchase, @LordDeleke’s brother transferred the money to someone else instead of returning the payment to John Doe.
Hundeyin cautioned individuals against unknowingly becoming middlemen in the transfer of ransom payments from kidnapping and fraud proceeds. He urged people to be vigilant and refund money in dispute to the same source instead of transferring it to a different party to prevent being involved in financial crimes such as money laundering and kidnapping. Hundeyin also advised victims of similar extortion to report such cases immediately to the police and offer truthful accounts of events to facilitate investigations into financial crimes.
