Uncovered: Massive Prison Fraud Targets Marriage-Seeking Women
Wonders, they say, shall never cease. Just when you think you’ve heard the last word on corruption in Nigeria, something new comes along to take your breath away.
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A correctional facility located in Okere, in Delta State, is the scene of the latest innovation in the long and ignoble history of fraud and perfidy in our nation. A few weeks ago, our source, a lawyer, (let’s call her Stella, though that’s not her real name) got a message on her Facebook page from one of her online friends requesting her urgent assistance.
Stella gave this FB friend (let’s call her Juliet) her phone number, upon which Juliet called her and proceeded to tell her a tale stranger than fiction.
Juliet said she met a young man via Facebook, with whom she struck a friendship which over time developed into a romantic relationship, so that before too long, the two began to talk seriously about marriage. Having decided on the next step on their journey towards matrimony, Juliet said, her online beau (let’s call him Emma) informed her that he was on his way from Port Harcourt to visit her at her base in Asaba when he had an accident, in which the other party died. As a result, he told her, he was immediately arrested and arraigned before a court, after which he got a lawyer to apply for his bail. To corroborate his story and underline the seriousness of her fiance’s plight, this ‘lawyer’ also called Juliet and told her that his fee was N150k. The anxious Juliet promptly paid up, and then went to Okere Prison to check on Emma. The next day, Emma’s lawyer called her again to tell her that he needed another N200k to pay the sureties for the bail. Sensing that something did not quite add up, it was at this point that Juliet called Lawyer Stella to express her misgivings over the whole affair so far, and pleaded with her to help get to the root of the matter.
Fortunately, Stella was free the following day, so after court she headed straight to Okere Prison, having warned Juliet not to alert Emma that she was on her way there – as he claimed to have a small phone he was using to communicate from his cell.
Upon getting to the facility, Stella saw a rather large number of ladies – all of them beautiful, well-turned out and mature – and they all had the same mission: they were there to see their fiancés! Some came loaded with all manner of goodies – food, new clothes, canned drinks, table water, etc. When Lawyer Stella approached the security desk and stated her mission, the officer in charge took her aside and asked her if she had also come to seek her fiancé. No, Stella replied; she was already married, but had come on behalf of a friend whose fiancé was being held here.
Snooping around while waiting for Emma to emerge from his cell, Stella stumbled upon the massive fraud being perpetrated in Okere Prisons even as we speak. This is how its being done: Inmates who have either been condemned to death, or sentenced to life imprisonment, etc, have devised a means to extort ladies who are desperate to get married. Thanks to their sophisticated phones and other devices, they are constantly on social media, where they woo such ladies, and eventually propose marriage. But on the week of the scheduled ‘introduction’, they would call the lady in question and tell her a cock-and-bull story – either they’ve been involved in a road accident (as in Emma’s case) in which somebody died, or the police arrested them for one alleged offense or the other. They would use another prison inmate to pose either as a police officer, a lawyer, a doctor, or even a Judge, and ask the unsuspecting ‘fiancee’ to come get them out of trouble for the sake of the impending marriage.
And so the milking begins: money for bail, money for the lawyer, money for sureties, even money to bribe the Judge, etc, until they sucked the poor lady dry … or the lady suspects something fishy, as in Juliet’s case, and finally catches on to the trick.
These inmates work hand-in-hand with some of the Prison Wardens who cover their tracks for a share of the loot, and make the ladies believe that their men were just being brought into custody, whereas they’d been there for years and years. These prison fraudsters give a different identity and alias to each of their victims. They use these monies to live like kings while in prison.
Meanwhile, Juliet called Emma to tell him that her sister, who happened to be a lawyer, was outside the prison premises and waiting to see him. On hearing that, he reacted angrily and cut the call on her. When Stella eventually got inside, she showed the warders the pictures Emma had been sending to Juliet in the course of their online friendship. They identified Emma from the photos and brought him to her. Stella was struck by how fresh and well-fed he looked (for a prison inmate of many years’ standing in Nigeria). He was expensively dressed in shredded designer jeans, a gold necklace, a gold wristwatch, and gold bracelets, and was holding a canned drink which he had been drinking.
Without any preambles, Stella used Warri slang to warn him to never to contact her client again – or risk having his pictures displayed all over social media. At that, Emma began to beg her not to. Apparently, he had been in prison for over 5 years, though he had told Juliet he was only remanded the previous Friday.
And from what some of the other warders who claimed not to be part of the plot told her in confidence, Stella gathered that some of the fraudsters usually told their victims that they were staffers of Shell and NNPC, or big-time contractors for these companies, or offshore workers based in Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt, etc. Over time, these warders said, they must have duped women out of over N16 million, the least amount being about N200k at a time. They said some of the inmates were even building their own houses while in prison. Stella even learned that they duped a lady out of N2.5 million just two days before her visit; apparently, the fraudster had told the lady that he needed that sum to “settle” the family of the person that died during the supposed accident he was involved in. He even urged her to collect a loan if necessary, promising to pay with interest when he would be released the very next day. And she did!
Stella was told that some of the inmates even used voodoo whenever they spoke to these ladies in a bid to get them hooked by supernatural means – so that after they send the first N150k, these criminals would then ask them to go take loans with the promise of interest upon their release.
Over time they even recruit outsiders in their nefarious trade – usually to go and collect the cash from their victims – their MAGAs.
In view of the above, this is Stella’s advice to ladies:
‘Please don’t be desperate to marry by all means. If any man who hasn’t paid a dime on you, by way of bride price, comes to tell you a story – no matter how pathetic it may sound – that requires that you spend money, please get a lawyer to help you investigate him. Better safe than sorry.
Imagine spending all your money on a criminal who has been sentenced to life imprisonment! God forbid!
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