Okechukwu Emeka and his wife, Destiny, are in a very big trouble after they teamed up to dupe a business man, Benjamin Eneje, who lost his son, Paschal, on April 19, 2014, after adding to his trauma by claiming Destiny had a child for the late 28-year-old man, Sun reports.
In the report, the couple, knowing Eneje was still grieving his lost son who was murdered in cold blood close to his house, Udi Local Government Area, Enugu State, devised a means of extorting money from him by claiming they knew who killed Paschal and that before he died, he had a fathered a child by Destiny.
The whole fraud scheme started in January, 2015, when the 37-year-old Emeka, an employee of Eneje, put a call to him to say he knew the murderers of his son, claiming he could lead him to the killers.
After that, he sent a text to Eneje that his late son had a child and believing he had a replacement for his child, the business man swallowed the lie, especially after Destiny called him to to confirm she had a four-month-old child for the deceased and began making monetary demands to take care of the toddler.
They even sent a photo of the boy to further convince the man who sent them the sum of N300,000 from the N500,000 they demanded.
But the scales fell off Eneje's eyes when he requested the couple bring the child to Enugu for his family to see and give a proper upbringing. But when they told him to send them more money to board a flight from their Port Harcourt base to Enugu, Eneje became suspicious and involved the police.
That was when the police laid an ambush for the fraudsters and they were traced to their base and arrested.
Eneje explained how the couple hoodwinked him:
“I believed what the lady told me. I thanked her for letting me know the story. And I promised to take care of her and the baby boy. I even connected her to my wife in London. She began to chat with my wife on Whatsapp.
My wife asked for a picture of the baby boy, which was sent to her in London, through Whatsapp. At this point, they made a request for N500,000 for the upkeep of the baby boy. We agreed and I sent them N350,000 naira. chat with my wife on Whatsapp.
Later, I asked the woman to bring the baby to Enugu, for us to see him. She said I should send them money for air-tickets. At this point, I became suspicious and reported the matter to Enugu State Commissioner of Police, Mohammed Adamu and detectives from the command started trailing them.
When they were arrested and I saw them, I was shocked to see that the husband of the woman was Okechukwu Emeka, a staff working in my oil service firm.”
The couple has confessed to the police that they used the money they collected from Eneje to meet their living expenses and pay their children’s school fees.
The police boss has assured that the couple would be charged to court when investigations are concluded.
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