Fake police officer detained while attempting to secure bail for 2 fraudsters

The Zone 2 Police Command in Lagos has detained an impostor Police officer over his alleged attempt to secure bail for two detained international fraudsters.

The Assistant Inspector-General of Police in charge of the zone, Adegoke Fayoade confirmed this to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Friday.

NAN recalls that the zonal command had detained the two suspected fraudsters allegedly found to have forged certificates from a university in Ghana.

The suspected fraudsters, alleged to be deeply involved in internet scams in many foreign countries, had also attempted to bribe operatives of the zone with N66 million.

The AIG said that the middle-aged impostor police officer had allegedly walked into the anti-corruption unit of the zonal command with a lawyer and identified himself as a Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP), serving in Edo.

Fayoade said that the suspect reportedly went further to seek the bail of the two suspects promising to produce them any time they were needed.

The AIG explained that when he was told to produce his identity card as a police officer, he presented a police warrant card.

He said “On closer scrutiny, it was discovered that in the warrant card, his picture with beards showed that he was hanging the rank of an Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP), with the name, Sunday Udoka.

“When detectives turned the back of the warrant card he presented; where the Inspector-General of Police was supposed to sign, an undecipherable signature with the abbreviation DCD dated 13th May 2024, was seen.

“This heightened the curiosity of detectives and he was subjected to more interrogation which ended in his opening up to confess that he prepared the warrant card, and fixed his passport photograph after appending a signature to it.

“He further confessed that he is a police inspector serving at the Anti-kidnapping Unit in Edo Command and that the suspects were his friends,” he said.

The AIG said the suspect further claimed that he came into the force as an ICT specialist in 2014, with a diploma in Computer Science before he later went for conversion in Jos.

Fayoade said that the suspect said he had no police identity card but forged one so as to use it to secure the bail of the detained suspects.

“It was based on these shocking confessions, he was detained at the station, while detectives are intensifying efforts to ascertain the veracity of all his claims and the level of relationship with the suspects,” he said.

The AIG said that the suspect would be charged in court.