By Wisdom Patrick, Lagos

Police detectives at the Special Fraud Unit, SFU, said they have arrested two land speculators who allegedly duped some senior military personnel and other innocent Nigerians of about N8Million using imaginary landed property in Ofada, Ogun State as bait.

Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) SFU, Adamu Muazu, told our correspondent that the department received a petition dated 8th March, in which the complainants allegedly said, “sometime in September 2010, the duo of Ayoade Precious Abidemi and Tope Ajisigiri Kehinde approached the victims and told them that they have a large expanse of land for sale at Ofada, Ogun State.”

The Police chief said that the military personnel having indicated their interest, paid the sum of N7.3 million to them with the expectation that the land will be allocated to them.  “Their suspicion was aroused when they requested for title document but were presented with forged survey plan, and subsequently the sellers started cat and mouse game with the soldiers.”

The suspects were arrested and investigation revealed that Ayoade Precious Abidemi is 29 years old, a graduate of Yaba College of Technology and the Managing Director of Ampris Global Resources.

Upon interrogation, Police discovered that the suspect, Ayoade Precious Abidemi, registered his company in 2009 to sell and develop estate and that he had an agreement with a family to purchase 200 acres of land which he has started paying for in tranches.  He however admitted obtaining the said sum from the Complainants but claimed that he had no intention to defraud them since he had allocated some plots to some of the buyers.

He confessed that he had not processed the certificate of occupancy with Ogun State Land Registry, but stated that he had sent an application to that effect.  He however promised to refund all the Complainants their money.

Police said the second suspect, Tope Ajisigiri  Kehinde, a 30year old graduate of Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago-Iwoye allegedly started working with Ampris Global Resources as Property Consultant and rose to the post of Business Development Manager.

“She marketed the land to the Complainants and provided them with the company’s account number where they paid in their money for subscription.  She equally collected some cash from the buyers.  She admitted the crime but stated that she did not intend to defraud the complainants.”

Police said the duo of the suspects would soon appear in court soon after investigation into the case is completed.