Businessmen defraud land buyer of N3m

Our reporter learnt Adeyemi allegedly collected the sum of N3m from Peters under the pretext that the money was for the sale of 11 plots of land to him located on Complete Leisure Estate, Sangotedo, Lagos State. It was gathered that the duo approached one Ojiofor Blessing to source for prospective buyers of land, which allegedly did not exist. Our correspondent learnt that Blessing petitioned the anti-graft commission about the incident and the duo were arrested. They were subsequently arraigned at the Ikeja High Court alongside their company, Stealth Communications Limited, on nine counts bordering on obtaining by false pretences. The offences were said to be contrary to sections 364(1) and 312 (3) of the Criminal Law of Lagos State, 2011. The charges read in part, “That you, Olufunmilade Adeyemi, aka Alexander Moses, and Stealth Communication Limited, sometime in 2016 at Lagos, within the Lagos judicial division, with intent to defraud, obtained the sum of N3m from Sanni Peters by falsely representing that the money was for the sale of 11 plots of land to him located on Complete Leisure Estate at the Sangotedo area of Lagos State, which representation you knew to be false.” At the Monday proceeding, an operative of the EFCC, Clever Ibrahim, narrated to the court how Adeyemi and Oladimeji allegedly obtained the money under false pretences. When led in evidence by the prosecution counsel, N.A. Anana, Ibrahim told Justice Olushola Williams that sometime in 2016, the commission received a petition from Ojiofor Blessing and it was assigned to his team for investigation. He said the defendants sought the service of the complainant to source for prospective buyers for land that did not exist, obtained money and issued a receipt, adding that Oladimeji on June 26, 2016, obtained N1.8m from Adeyemi. He said, “In the course of the investigation, we could not get the first defendant (Adeyemi) on the address; all effort to get him proved abortive. The anti-graft commission subsequently declared him wanted. “Sometime in March 2018, we received a call from the Economic and Organised Crime Office in Ghana that the first and second defendants were arrested. We then travelled to Ghana to extradite them.But before we got to Ghana, they had been released. “It is worthy of note that while in Ghana, Adeyemi was known as Alexander Moses and we did not know the whereabouts of Oladimeji. We then extradited the first defendant back to Nigeria. Later, we were able to arrest the second defendant.” However, when the prosecution counsel sought to tender the defendants’ confessional statements made at the EFCC office when they were arrested, the defendants’ counsel opposed the tendering of the statements, arguing that they were obtained under duress. Justice Williams adjourned the case till October 26, 2018.]]>