Man held for alleged attempt to defraud Otedola, Tinubu

A suspected fraudster, Babatunde Oyebode, has been arrested by operatives of the Police Special Fraud Unit (SFU), Milverton Road, Ikoyi, for allegedly attempting to swindle oil magnates, Sir Femi Otedola and Wale Tinubu.

The 23-year old school certificate holder, who lives on 6th Avenue, FESTAC Town, Lagos, was accused of fraudulently running a website, naijagistlive.com  to send threat messages to high- profile businessmen and demanded an undisclosed sum from them.

Police source said that the suspect had also posted super-imposed nude pictures of a lawyer on his website, alleging that she had been sleeping with her boss and other clients.

“The suspect had demanded the sum of N3.5 million from the lawyer to enable him remove the provocative pictures from the site.

“The victim had allegedly told the suspect that she had no such money in her account and that the pictures posted on the website had cost her, her job, her marriage and her social life.

“The female lawyer is among the three different persons, who petitioned the suspect,” he said.

In a statement, the Public Relations Officer (PRO) of SFU, Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) Lawal Audu, said the suspect has three different cases pending before the unit of the force.

He said that the first and second cases had to do with threat to life and fraud.

According to him, on October 19, 2016, one Dapo Balogun reported a case of extortion, black mail and threat to life against the suspect.

“The complainant claimed that the suspect had posted on naijagistlive.com a story alleging that he had worked with former Petroleum Minister, Deziani Allison-Maduekwe and that throughout the period he had fraudulently acquired huge sum of money.

“The complainant also claimed to have received a mail from the suspect, informing him that he should pay an undisclosed amount running into millions to enable him remove the provocative story from the site. He also alleged that since then, he had been receiving threat messages from unknown callers demanding for huge sum or risk being kidnapped.

“The second complainant is Femi Otedola. He claimed that the suspect also posted an annoying story on the same naijagistlive.com alleging that he had been sleeping with different girls in his office,” he added.

The PRO said based on the strength of the petition, operatives of the unit swung into action and arrested the suspect.

“The suspect has another fraud case pending at the Federal High court,” he added.

But in a swift reaction, the suspect alleged that he was framed by the owners of the website.

According to him, he only designed the website for an unknown client, whom he only had dealings with through email.

“I design websites for people and after designing the site, I will include my contacts in the website to attract other customers. I was arrested through my contact onnaijagistlive.com,” he added.