The police in Lagos
have arrested a 54-year-old man, Michael Bisa, for allegedly selling fake
phones to customers in the Oshodi area of the state.
Punch learnt that Bisa, who
hails from Effurun, Delta State, was arrested by operatives of the Rapid Response
Squad on Saturday at about 5pm.
According to
the police, Bisa allegedly swindled members of the public by disguising as a
mobile phone seller in the area, selling bars of soap to them instead.
Punch gathered that the police recovered bars of soap, shirts, some
amount of money and envelopes from the suspect.
Bisa, a
father of four, said in his statement that it was poverty that drove him to
sell bars of soap as mobile phones.
He said,
“What I did to my customers is called exchange. The people who came to me to
buy mobile phones would be shown a real phone. But while we were discussing the
price, I would carefully hide the phone in a white handkerchief and swap it
with a bar of soap which I had already cut to size and put in a phone case.
“As soon as
they left the spot, I would change my clothes so that the buyer would not
recognise me again.”
Bisa added
that a friend, who was now dead, identified as Hakeem Tijani, introduced him to
the “job” about four years ago.
He said, “I
was a refrigerator technician in Delta State. I came to Lagos to look for
greener pastures about 15 years ago. When the situation got so hard for me, I
met a friend, Hakeem Tijani, who is now late. He was the one who taught me the
job. Since that time, about four years ago, I have been surviving this way.”
The Police
Public Relations Officer, DSP Joe Offor, confirmed the arrest, adding that the
suspect would be charged to court soon.
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