The Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Police Command has arrested the suspects who allegedly scammed a
Nigerian comedian, Timothy Obotuke, known as Sirbalo of N60 million.
TheCable Lifestyle reports that the spokesperson of the FCT Police Command, Josephine Adeh, confirmed the arrest of the suspects in an interview following a petition filed by controversial social media critic, Martins Vincent Otse a.k.a VeryDarkMan.
According to Adeh, the police found it very tough to locate the suspects as a result of their tactics in changing phone numbers, adding that there is an ongoing investigation to ascertain whether they are a syndicate and also for how long they have been in the business.
“We arrested the suspects. The Sirbalo came through one VDM. He wrote a petition to the CP. The suspects used to pose with these apartments as their own houses,” Adeh was quoted as saying.
“They locate somebody’s land and sell it and they would defraud you of your money and then disappear. So, in Sirbalo’s case too it is the same,” she said.
“The FCT police command was able to arrest those people. It has been a rollercoaster getting those people. Given the lines they used to communicate with Sirbalo and the rest, they deactivated the lines.
“We were able to get all the suspects. All of them are in our custody. The investigation will prove whether they are a syndicate and whether other people are involved. Because these particular ones that defrauded Sirbalo have been arrested.”
VeryDarkMan had taken to his Instagram account to reveal his efforts to help Sirbalo recover the sum of N60m which he was allegedly duped of in a land purchase scam.
According to VDM, Sirbalo had planned to purchase the land in Abuja but the suspected land sellers scammed the comedian in the process before they were eventually arrested.
“So, I dey police station this night. Not for myself but because of Sir Balo, the comedian. Sir Balo and his friends bought land from a guy. They saw the land online, went to go and check it, did surveying, and checked everything on the land. They now charged them N60million for the land. They went to the guy’s house and they paid for the land. The guy gave them the documents,” VDM said.
“A few months later, they went to the land to see if they could start development and discovered another person owned the land. They said ‘let us go back to the person that sold the land to us’.
“They went to the person’s house and discovered he was no longer there. They discovered the person rented the apartment when he knew Sir Balo wanted to come and pay for the land. Finally, they arrested the person after they searched for him.”
