A Nigerian masters degree holder, identified as Aminu Ahmed Yerima,has been arrested for allegedly defrauding over 50 persons on Facebook, after impersonating an aide to former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar.
Yerima fleeced his victims of large sums of money, running into millions of naira but ran out of luck when two of his female victims petitioned the I.G of Police, Ibrahim Idris, about how he defrauded them of the sum of N5million within 6 months.
The suspect created a Facebook account using pictures of himself and Atiku, in Mecca, Saudi Arabia and several other locations. He also identified himself on his Facebook wall as the personal aide to the former vice president. .
He made his victims to believe that Atiku usually gave out financial assistance and contracts to people who were in need and he assured them that he could always help to facilitate it. .
He had told the women who wrote separate petitions against him, Raliat and Awa Maje, that Atiku would give them N15million while he fleeced them of N5million each to process the payment from Atiku.
Confessing openly during an interview with newsmen, the 29-year-old suspect said:
“I went into fraud in 2016 after I could not secure a good job and I was equally duped by someone on facebook who wanted to link me up to a ‘sugar mummy’ who would be paying me for sex.
The fraudster took N30,000 from me and blocked me from communicating with him on facebook. Then I thought I could do the same thing and make some money for myself since I had no job.
I uploaded several pictures of myself and Atiku who is very accessible. Whenever he was in town, he allowed people to come around his house and take photographs with him.
I have snapped several pictures with him over the years. I also learned how to defraud people using fake bank alert and I used it in buying goods in Kano State before I arrested.“
