The prisoner, Ikechuwku Ogbu (alias Prince Eze), investigations reveal, created a 419 syndicate from inside the inner recesses of the prison, with which he had been duping unsuspecting members of the public. His forte is what is known in advance fee fraud as love scam. He advertised himself as an eligible bachelor who desperately needs a wife.
Those who responded to adverts, ended up adding to the long list of his victims. However, the riddle which EFCC operatives are trying to resolve is how a prisoner managed to place an advertorial in the love links page of the Vanguard Newspapers of March 7, 2009. In the advertorial, Ogbu wrote: “I am Prince Eze, 46, from Anambra State, live in Lagos. Genotype AA, Blood Group 0 needs a working class business lady between 39-45 to settle down with on 07057928637 or 07085350598. Several women that were desperately looking for husband called these numbers.
One of them is a lady, who works with the National Assembly in Abuja. After making contacts with her proposed spouse, she flew to Lagos, to ensure that others didn’t beat her to her prospective husband.
She received the shock of her life when she landed at the domestic wing of the Murtala Muhammed Airport, Ikeja and no one was there to pick her.
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This prompted her to call Ogbu, who now told her that he was actually detained in Kirikiri Prison by the EFCC over money laundering matters, whereas he is serving a jail term. He told the woman to come over to the prison to meet him. She did. On getting to the prison yard, she was accorded VIP treatment by the warders and this gave her the impression that Ogbu was an influential personality who was detained over a minor issue.
When Ogbu finally met her, he told the lady that theirs was love at first sight. He painted the picture of a blissful marital experience for the couple once he gets out of prison. The woman couldn’t believe her luck for getting a husband, a rich one at that, so cheap. While the woman was thanking God, Ogbu moved to the next stage of his plan to pull off a massive scam. He told her that he was a drug baron and that someone was sending $25 million to him from the United States, but that he was afraid of lodging the money in his own account for fear that it could be seized by EFCC.
The woman fell for the bait, and suddenly made it her business to look for an account for the fraudster. Instead of returning to her station in Abuja, she flew to Port-Harcourt to meet her brother-in-law, a manager with one of the new generation banks and told him about the business. The banker immediately flew to Lagos and met Ogbu. And the story changed. He said the person bringing the money from the US said he would not release it until he came out of prison.
The challenge now was for the banker to arrange his release which, supposedly entails bribing key officials of the prison service and the EFCC as well as the judge. He gave the bankers number to fake EFCC officials who were members of the syndicate.
They started calling the banker, demanding for all sorts of money (in millions). And he paid. At the end of the day, he lost over N12million to the fraudsters, yet Ogbu was not released neither was any payment in dollars received.
At this juncture, he realized that he had been fleeced and reported to the EFCC. The commission’s investigations revealed that Ogbu lives like a king in Kirikiri Prison. Although he was not supposed to have access to telephone, five cell phones were recovered from the unrepentant prisoner when EFCC stormed the prison last Thursday, June17. It was also discovered that he had been receiving huge sums of money in the presence of warders.
